A SENIOR councillor has backed a campaign for fairer education funding and sweeping reforms to solve challenges in the sector.
It comes as figures suggest local authorities in England could have a combined deficit in special educational needs and disabilities (SEND) of £6billion by April.
Now the f40 group is calling for a commitment on funding to meet the cost of current and future shortfalls.
Cllr Janet Higgins, Staffordshire County Council’s cabinet member for education and SEND, said said the current system was “unsustainable”.
“I am proud to support f40 and their campaign – and I am passionate that every child, no matter what their circumstances, should have access to the support and resources they need to reach their full potential.
“We are investing in SEND with a focus on early intervention, additional specialist places and specialist provision resource hubs across the county, but with demand increasing and rapidly outstripping supply, the current system is unsustainable and in need of fundamental reform.
“For too long Staffordshire has been penalised by an outdated and unfair funding model. This is not good enough and our children deserve better. I want to see a new funding model which fairly distributes education funding to ensure that every school has enough funding to operate well.”
The f40 group, which campaigns on behalf of 43 local authorities across the country for fairer and increased education funding,is hoping for a whole re-set of the sector.
Cllr Alex Dale, chair of f40, said:
“We welcome Government’s commitment to tackle the crisis in SEND and hope they take this opportunity to really get to the root causes of the issues and make brave, lasting changes that benefit every child and school.
“However, the reforms must be backed by funding, or schools and the reforms themselves will be set up to fail.
“While Government is focusing on education, it’s the perfect time to also improve the National Funding Formula to ensure money for schools is distributed more fairly. Currently, some schools receive more than £5,000 less per pupil than others, and only a third of the SEND funding that others get. That is fundamentally wrong.
“No child should be worth less than another.”
