Warwickshire County Council insists plans to more than treble resourced provision places for SEND pupils in mainstream schools are not aimed at moving children around.

The council's cabinet – the panel of Conservative councillors in charge of decision making and major service areas – will consider a report advocating the expansion of resourced provisions at its meeting on Thursday. 

It is part of the authority's Delivering Better Value (DBV) programme which aims to bring down multi-million pound overspends on special educational needs and disabilities (SEND) provision and associated areas such as home-to-school transport. 

Resourced provisions are areas of mainstream schools specifically dedicated to catering for certain SEND, and while 168 such places have been established from a baseline of zero since 2015, capacity remains a growing issue. 

The council says the number of children with education, health and care plans (EHCPs) has risen from 3,257 in 2017 to 6,054 in 2024 with more than 2,000 attending state-funded special schools or independent provision through costly private operators. 

In January 2024, 324 pupils were in private placements at an average cost of more than £66,000 per pupil – a figure that is just over £24,000 in state-funded schools or £22,678 in resourced provisions.

The county estimates that more than half – 57 per cent, or four in every seven – of the children placed in its special schools could have been catered for in resourced provision, thereby opening up more places for those with more complex needs, avoiding some of the need to dip into the private marketplace.

However, the report states: "The rationale is not to remove children from special schools into SEND resourced provisions.

"Instead, the establishment of resourced provisions will provide broader options in decision making for future requests for education provision.

"In future, there will be greater opportunity to place children at resourced provisions within mainstream in accordance with their needs."

Warwickshire has established 19 resourced provisions since 2015 and wants to roll out another 31 by 2028, taking the placement count up to a minimum of 529 or 600 if the council can secure the funds. 

It anticipates that £17.7 million would cover the lower figure, all of which the county hopes will come from the Department for Education (DfE) based on past capital grant funding, with a spend of just over £25 million required to get to 600. 

It is estimated that £25.6 million could be saved on costs over a five-year period and bring down the annual bill by around £10.6 million per year from there but the proposals are by no means certain to move forward as planned. 

High needs funding from government has fluctuated in recent years, going from £6 million to £7 million before dropping to £2 million for this financial year (2024-25), and detailed plans are yet to come forward with ballpark estimates making up the anticipated spend. 

The report acknowledges "projects will need to be delayed or scaled back accordingly" if there are overspends or funding problems, although the council is said to be in regular dialogue with the DfE, particularly over upcoming spend-to-save funding. 

Another potential problem is that schools do not have to set up resourced provisions, they can only be encouraged to, a particular problem in secondary education where the bulk of schools are run by academies that are outside the direct control of the county.