I have now been the lead councillor for Children’s Services’ for a year.
When the Liberal Democrats took over the council in May 2022, we inherited a system which was faced with rising numbers of children with special educational needs and disabilities, but was struggling to find the capacity or the resources to provide those children with the education they needed.
Too many of our children with special educational needs and disabilities have to travel a long way out of the borough for their education.
Many of the schools they go to are in the independent sector, and very expensive.
While there will always be some children who need very specialist provision, many of the children who currently have to go further afield would benefit from being able to go to an appropriate school closer to home.
A new special school in Winnersh is already on the way. It will take 150 children and the intention is that it will serve Wokingham Borough and Reading equally.
It is due to open in September, but it has been obvious for a while that this would not meet all the extra demand for special school places.
Last autumn, we bid to the Department for Education for funding to build two additional special schools, and earlier this year we found out that we were successful in both bids. We are delighted.
We had hoped to get funding for one school, and were amazed to get both.
The fact that we did is an indication that the government has recognised the significant level of difficulty that we have with provision and funding locally.
The two schools will take 100 children each. One will be for children with primarily emotional and mental health needs, and the other for children with, primarily, learning and other disabilities. Work has now started on the building projects and we expect the schools to be open in about four to five years.
These two new schools will help, but they are not the only thing that needs to happen with regard to Special Educational Needs and Disabilities. Due to Wokingham’s low level of education funding, since the funding mechanism changed in 2017 the schools budget has accumulated a deficit of over £16 million, almost entirely in the block of spending provided for Special Educational Needs.
If spending were to be left unchecked, the deficit would continue to spiral upwards to the point at which in about five years it would threaten the very viability of the council itself. But also, the quality of our SEND service is not good enough. While Wokingham Borough is far from the worst-performing local authority on SEND, we can, and should, do better for our children.
As well as more specialist provision locally, we need better support for children in mainstream schools, right from the point at which it is first identified that they may have additional needs.
Creating a better SEND support service will be a win for everyone. By supporting children more effectively and much earlier, we will do better for the children, their parents and their schools, but we will also save money.
Making huge structural changes to the way we handle Special Educational Needs is not easy and will take a while. It requires real partnership working with our schools, our colleagues in the NHS, and, most importantly, parents.
There are likely to be bumps along the road. Change is never easy. We know we are asking parents, particularly, to take a leap of faith that we can make things better for their children.
We can’t guarantee that we can do everything that they want. But we are determined to do better.
The Lib Dems started to bring change to the council in our first year. We will be working hard towards making even more of a difference in the year ahead.
Cllr Prue Bray is the deputy leader of the council, executive member for children’s services, and ward member for Winnersh
