Education

Nottingham City Council spending extra £732,000 on planned special needs spaces across four schools

By Latifa Yedroudj, Junior Local Democracy Reporter

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Rising construction costs mean Nottingham City Council is having to spend £732,000 more than it first planned to provide extra school spaces for pupils with complex special needs.

The funding will be given to Nottingham Girls’ Academy, Rise Park Primary, Glade Hill Primary, and Fernwood Secondary to help them deliver more specialist places and accommodate a higher intake of pupils.

The funds will also be used to develop a special educational needs and disabilities (SEND) service for pupils currently based at Rise Park Primary School.

The funding will come from the Government and a £50,000 underspend from a project at Milford Primary.

It comes after Nottingham City Council’s leadership approved a SEND Strategy in September 2023 to improve support and facilities for students with special needs.

The council received just under £18 million of funding from the Department of Education in 2021.

A portion of these funds will now go to Nottingham Girls’ Academy, Rise Park Primary, Glade Hill Primary, and Fernwood Secondary to create more school spaces.

But due to rising construction costs, these four schools out of the eight school projects can no longer stay within their original budgets despite cost-cutting measures, documents say.

The other three schools whose projects managed to stay within budget are Nethergate Specialist Academy, Green Fields Primary Academy and Rosehill Specialist School.

Milford Primary, managed to go under its allocated budget – meaning it didn’t use all its allocated funds.

The council said cutting costs will “no longer deliver positive outcomes” to the projects – so more funding is needed to deliver them, documents say.

The original budget for Nottingham Girls’ Academy was £1.98 million but this has now increased by £100,000.

Rise Park Primary’s budget will rise from £1.2 million by £123,000, while Glade Hill Primary’s original budget of £1.85 million will go up by £200,000.

Fernwood Secondary will need £400,000 more for the upgrades, pushing its original budget up from £2.75 million to £3.15 million.

Milford Primary went  £100,000 under its budget, so this money will be added to the pot.

This reduces the total required funding from £832,000 to £732,000.

Cllr Cheryl Barnard, Executive Member for Children, Young People and Education at Nottingham City Council, said councils are facing budget pressures to meet the growing demand for SEND education.

Creating more local school spaces for SEND students will reduce costs in the long-run, she said.

By increasing the number of places in the city, the council can avoid expensive out-of-area placements and reduce the need for transporting pupils to distant specialist schools.

She told the Local Democracy Reporting Service: “There is now more pressure on every local authority that is responsible for education.

“The [borough and district] councils don’t have responsibility for education in the same way that county councils and municipal councils do.

“Any unitary authority that has responsibility for education, [SEND pupils’ needs] are putting pressure on all budgets.

“Not just because of school spaces, but also the transport costs of getting children to and from school.

“That’s why it’s better to keep them local, because it keeps the cost down as well.

“So wherever we can, we’re trying to create more school spaces locally, so that there is less pressure on actual transport costs for children.”

The council said the projects are essential to delivering its SEND strategy across the city – or else pupils will be left behind.

Documents read: “Failure to deliver the SEND projects will mean that the SEND Strategy can not be delivered, as it is unlikely that other schools will come forward to provide these facilities.

“This will mean that more pupils are excluded or that costly bespoke packages have to be created under the S19 of the Education Act.”

Nottingham has a rising number of young people with special needs, and there is an “urgent” and “increasing need” to create more school spaces, council documents add.

Nottingham City Council approved the final funding decision on Tuesday, May 20.

A report on the issue reads: “Nottingham is experiencing considerable growth in the number of young people identified as having SEND and there is an urgent, significant and increasing need for additional capacity to meet this
demand.

“The council is committed to supporting our schools and settings within the city to offer high quality, inclusive education.”