Councillors recommended to approve an extra £9.1 million for SEND services

• Funding would pay for new permanent SEND staff to support children and young people
• If approved, this year more than £20 million would have been committed to expanding the service
• Investment to be discussed at Cabinet next week

The additional investment would mean that more than 30 new permanent members of staff could be recruited to help the council keep up with expected need for SEND services and deliver its important improvement plans. It would also pay for contracts to secure more educational psychology capacity – key to helping children and young people access the help they need.

This investment is in addition to the £11.2 million over three years agreed by Cabinet in February 2024, which is being used to grow the SEND team by 15% or around 60 members of staff.

In total, the council is proposing to commit more than £20 million over the next three years to bolster SEND services.

Cllr Andrew Reid, Cabinet Member for Education and SEND at Suffolk County Council, said:

“At the moment, our staff have significant workloads and are under pressure to deliver our improvement plans.

“This new investment, which I hope my colleagues will be minded to approve, will increase productivity, lead to reductions in staff absences and enable important improvements to the experiences of Suffolk’s children and young people, and their families.

“Reforming SEND services is our top priority and this investment, especially given the challenging financial situation we face, shows our commitment.”

Of the £9.1 million, £2.6 million will be spent in 2024/25. This investment in permanent staff will recur in subsequent years as they continue to support children and young people with SEND. In 2025/26, £500,000 will be added to the SEND budget and in 2026/27, a further £500,000 will be added – both of which will be recurrent in subsequent years.

This investment follows an Area SEND inspection by Ofsted and CQC in November 2023, which found widespread failings across the Local Area Partnership. As a result of this, the partnership, which delivers SEND services and is made up of Suffolk County Council, the NHS Suffolk and North East Essex Integrated Care Board (ICB) and NHS Norfolk and Waveney ICB, published a Priority Action Plan. One of the actions in the plan includes increasing the timeliness and quality of Education, Health and Care plans and Annual Reviews. The proposed new staff would, in part, support the delivery of this work.

The Cabinet meeting begins at 2pm on Wednesday July 24. You can read the Cabinet papers here.