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15
Apr 2023
Tory-run North Yorkshire Council has accused the Department for Education of “extremely slow” action and unfair funding of school spaces for vulnerable youngsters with special educational needs.
An officers’ report to leading members of the council highlights the government awards the county just 61% of the national average figure for special schools building schemes.
At the same time, the council faces a shortfall of about 100 places from September and 350 places over the next three to five years.
The report states using DfE data and criteria for specialist provision funding, North Yorkshire ranked 118th out of 150 councils.
Officers said this academic year had seen “a very marked increase” in requests for pupils to be assessed for SEN.
So while 700 new assessments had been a reasonably stable level for a number of years, forecasts of the likely number of requests for this year were between 980 and 1,090.
In addition, the report states resources available to the council to invest in key maintenance projects have reduced significantly in recent years, so North Yorkshire Council only receives about £6.3m to maintain 200 schools.
Exacerbating this, all of the council’s applications to secure government rebuild programmes at its special schools have been unsuccessful.
Officers said capital funding from the government for high needs pupils had been “significant but disappointing in comparison to other authorities”.
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