Welsh Government accused of under-funding children with additional learning needs

Richard Evans, Local Democracy Reporter

The Welsh Government came under fire at a council’s education meeting and were accused of under-funding children with additional learning needs in Wales.

Denbighshire County Council’s Performance Scrutiny Committee met this week to examine an education report detailing the mounting service pressures within the county’s Additional Learning Needs (ALN) services.

During the discussions, councillors hit out at Welsh Government for failing to provide extra funding to local authorities for ALN.

The UK Government’s spending on special educational needs in England had generated around £340m in additional funding for Wales.

But the Welsh Government decided not to pass the money directly to councils for ALN, arguing that the funding was linked to the write-off of historic SEND debts in England, which Welsh councils did not have.

At the committee meeting at the authority’s Ruthin County Hall HQ, councillors heard that statutory psychological advice requests had increased by 239% since 2023.

Despite £1.7m of council investment, the committee heard how schools were struggling to keep up with pressures. These included a rise in tribunal and legal proceedings and the extension of statutory responsibilities.

Speaking at the meeting, Cllr Martyn Hogg appeared to criticise the Welsh Government when asking the authority’s Head of Education, Geraint Davies, how extra funding from the Welsh Government might have helped – had it been given.

“There was a decision taken by Welsh Government not to utilise the full consequential funding,” he said.
Chairing the meeting, Cllr Gareth Sandilands interjected: “£340m, I think, was transferred from the UK Government.”

Cllr Martyn Hogg thanked Cllr Sandilands for providing the figure and said: “I don’t know the exact figures, but it’s been bandied about that anything between £7m and £10m could have come to Denbighshire if we had used consequentials for this.

“It reminds me of Bullseye and Jim Bowen: ‘Let’s have a look at what you could have won.’

“Whenever ALN has come to scrutiny, funding and resources have been a big constraint for schools as well. From what I’ve heard from headteachers, you can suddenly find you have a larger number than expected of pupils with additional learning needs, and you have to cope at short notice.

“So I have to ask this question: not all of that money might have gone to education – some of it might have gone to the health board in order to get diagnoses done more quickly – but what could you have done with that extra money?”

He added: “We’ve been using reserves, which has all kinds of impacts. This would have been a huge amount of funding and presumably would have really helped you address a lot of these issues. Do you want to comment on that?”

But the council’s Deputy Leader and Lead Member for Education, Cllr Huw Hilditch-Roberts, said he would answer the question.

“I don’t think it is fair to put Geraint (Head of Education, Mr Davies) on the spot, because this is a political question. However, for me, absolutely, if we’d had that money, even if we’d had a small piece of that cake, it would have been fantastic. Because what I don’t think people understand – for the next eight months, I’m not going to apologise about going on about this – is that the pressures on our teachers in our schools are immense.

“I was lead member during COVID, and I felt there was pressure during COVID. But I tell you this is a different kind of pressure. It’s almost a pressure that’s coming quicker every day than it has been. And what that money would have done to give the early intervention to give the schools the fundamental structure to help these children on their journeys throughout their education journey would actually support and improve finances in other departments of the council later on in life.

“And I think that is the short-sightedness of not supporting ALN to the extent it is, because it is not giving our children the right to a good education, the right support that they need to flourish.”

He added: “These kids are our future, and we need to give them the best support. We have fantastic teachers. They are doing things that they are not paid for, but they are going over and above.

“We are doing what we’ve done for about four or five years, but we’ve always done it before the pressure came in. We haven’t changed the ways massively. “But what has changed is the pressure without the money and without the support, and for me, the message is we need to revisit that, and Welsh Government needs to revisit that and see how they can support us going forward.”

Head of Education Geraint Davies then added that a “considerable” amount of funding could have had a “considerable” effect but added the council would have also needed sustainable and recurring funding too.

Mr Davies said the money could have meant the council could expand pupil referral support, look at tuition centres, as well as provide specialist provision for children who need additional support, and fund extra staff to relieve pressure.

The committee scrutinised the report and agreed to write to the Minister for Education and ask for additional funding.

A Welsh Government spokesperson previously said: “We understand the significant pressures on schools, local authorities, and families to support learners with ALN.

“We are committed to working in partnership with local government and our partners across the education sector to develop a plan with short, medium and longer term actions to address these pressures, and make the ALN system in Wales sustainable.”

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