By Lauren Monaghan, Junior Local Democracy Reporter
Nottinghamshire County Council plans to provide hundreds of new school places to young people with special educational needs, after the number of children requiring support plans rose sharply.
The council’s Children and Families Select Committee met yesterday (Monday, July 15) to discuss the developments in the support for young people with special educational needs and disabilities (SEND).
The report read by the committee discussed the improvements in support for these young people and the acknowledged rise in assessments in accessing Educational, Health and Care Plans (EHCPs).
An EHCP is a legal document detailing a young person’s educational, health and social care needs, the support they require and the outcomes they would like to achieve, with Nottinghamshire having a 103.5 per cent increase in these plans between 2017 and 2024.
With more young people requiring EHCPs, the SEND system across Nottinghamshire has been put under pressure.
The numbers of young people waiting for a specialist educational placement has increased over the past three years, with 244 by the end of May this year.
The council has been working to increase the number of additional specialist placements for young people with SEND, starting in 2021, with 92 additional placements across four schools by 2023.
Four projects currently under way will provide an extra 260 places across five institutions, with the development of a new special school in Mansfield providing more than half of these.
Two more planned projects aim to provide a potential 260 to 300 places over the next three to four years.
With all these developments, Nottinghamshire could see between 612 and 652 new specialist educational placements by September 2028, with 490 implemented by September 2026.
Nottinghamshire has fewer Special School and Academy places than the averages in the rest of the East Midlands and England, with 1,275 places in 2022 to 2023 across 11 institutions in the county.
Because of the low numbers of places in these schools, schools in Nottinghamshire are full and the County Council has had to use the independent sector to appease the increased demand of placements for young people with SEND.
But this has come at a cost, with the average placement cost in an independent setting being around £53,000, compared with £27,000 for a place in a Special School or Academy in Nottinghamshire.
Councillor Sam Smith said: “I can’t guarantee to the committee today sadly that all of them will be delivered within the timeframes set out.
“There are various factors that are involved, planning issues at different authorities etcetera… but we are working with our partners across the department but also with schools themselves to deliver [those extra school spaces] … I am confident we will do so in time.”
