DORSET is facing a funding time bomb to meet the needs of children with additional needs.

An overspend of £6.5 million is already projected until the end of the financial year in March 2020 with the potential for another £1 million to be added.

This trend could result in a cumulative retained debt of more than £22m on the Dorset Council balance sheet next year – unless action is taken.

Cabinet members have agreed a strategy to shift resources to meet needs at an earlier stage and to bring the overspend on what is known as the higher needs block down over a five-year period.

Councillors were told that by intervening earlier it would reduce demand over time without detriment to the children and young people involved -  but would result in more children needing support in mainstream schools.

“Meeting the needs of pupils with additional needs, including SEND, within mainstream settings is the most cost-effective option. It is also, where it is possible to adequately meet needs within the mainstream setting, the best option for children and young people, because they remain within their community and within their support network and reducing a potential transition,” said a report to Cabinet, by corporate director for education and learning Mark Blackman.

Councillors were told that systems would need to be put in place, working with partners, to assess children’s needs at an earlier stage and to quickly adopt the right intervention. It would also mean better planning for transitions from early years schooling to further education and from further education to preparing for adulthood.

The county is expected to get an extra £2.8m from the Government to help tackle the higher needs problem in 2020-21, but has been told by the Department for Education that tackling its long-term deficit, due to an historic underfunding of services, is ‘not achievable’ which will mean almost £22m of debt staying on the council’s books, unless the Government agrees for it to be written off.

A report to Dorset Council says that the problems started in 2014 when the Children and Families Act extended the eligible range for children with special educational needs from 19 to 25 and also raised parents expectations about what could be funded – yet without any increase in Government funding to local councils.

At the same time the number of children with complex needs has increased by 50 per cent in the last decade and in Dorset, as elsewhere, is expected to continue to grow. More than 5,000 Dorset children could have an Education and Health Care Plan by 2024/25, more than double the current number, half of which are in a specialist setting.

As of July 2019, 139 Dorset children were in a independent special provision places, funded by the higher needs block, at a cost of £8.1m, because the county did not have enough places of its own – a need which is now being addressed by additional provision, including a new school at Bovington which currently offers 25 places but should have 160 spaces by 2022.

There is a current provision of 676 special places at five schools in Wimborne, Beaminster, Bovington, Weymouth and Sturminster Newton with two more schools planned, one of which is likely to be in Portland or Weymouth.