Calls to reform the funding system for SEND pupils who need additional resources could be approved.

The motion which is being tabled at a full council meeting today calls for the leader of Oxfordshire County Council, Liz Leffman, to write to the Education Secretary asking to reform the SEND system and provide clarity on the governments’ long-term plan for dealing with the high needs block deficit.

High needs funding is used for school pupils and students who require additional resources for their education and learning.

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It is provided to local governments through the high needs block of the Dedicated Schools Grant, which comes from central government.

Oxfordshire’s high needs block funding is estimated to be £21.3 million in deficit for 2023/24, white the total deficit across England is £3.16 billion.

The motion states that it is “unrealistic to expect local authorities to manage such significant deficits in a short time frame without reform of the SEND system”.

Liberal Democrat Councillor Jane Hanna, who proposed the motion, said that it was “very urgent”.

While she welcomes the £1 billion uplift in SEND funding outlined in last weeks’ Budget, she added that this funding “is a drop in the ocean for local government”.

“The other huge part of the motion is that improvement comes with urgent reform, as well as money," she added. 

“The system we have at the moment is not sustainable, and it is not working in the way that stakeholders or anyone involved is happy with.

“What we really need is reform in the next 12 months.

"People who have had a difficult or bad start in life are hugely more likely to have SEND needs.

“What we really need is a whole system working together, that is inclusive of those children at an earlier stage.

“The challenge for our society is giving a good start to all children.”

There is a statutory override which allows councils to hold off their high needs funding debt temporarily.

However, the motion warns that a quarter of local authorities would become “insolvent” within a year, and another quarter meet the same fate after another year, if the statutory override for SEND funding is removed.

Approximately 18 per cent of children have some form of special educational need, while an estimated one in 10 children who are ‘in need’, such as being a ‘looked after child’, also have SEND needs, according to government figures. 

The number of children with Education Health and Care (EHC) plans has more than doubled over the past decade, increasing to over 7,000 this year.

The full county council meeting will take place at 10.30am today and the decision will go to the executive before it can be put in place.