Council will overspend its education budget while battling demands for out-of-area care

The authority is predicted to spend £830,000 on the placements, additional pupil support and education other than at school provision (EOTAS), by the end of the 2018/19.

A report reveals the cost to be the largest faced by the council but underspends within the learning, education and inclusion budget have balanced the total excess to £586,000.

But councillors were warned that plugging shortfalls with underspends elsewhere is becoming increasingly difficult as the council attempts to make year-on-year savings.

Cutbacks of £1.2 million within education and lifelong learning were targeted in the revenue budget settlement for 2018/19.

Labour councillor David Hardacre raised concerns about the figure at a meeting of the education for life scrutiny committee on Tuesday.

“That’s a massive figure that we’re paying out for out-of-county care,” said Cllr Hardacre.

“We talk about mental health issues with patients and pupils continuing to grow, and you have this growing as well.

“We’re only going to need more and more money for this year, sow here are we going to get it from?”

The meeting heard that more than 300 in Caerphilly require out-of-county or EOTAS support, with the number of people receiving medically certificated home tuition “rising rapidly”.

Cllr Hardacre and Plaid Cymru councillor Martyn James both expressed a view that there should be more inhouse provision in Caerphilly.

Keri Cole, chief education officer, said: “We have piloted several successful schemes where schools work together to see if they can keep young people in their school.

“We are putting together options to develop inhouse provision – we don’t have a huge amount, we need more, and schools agree.”

Ms Cole said the council had been forced to meet rising costs to place children with the most challenging circumstances with private providers.

“We will always have a number of pupils for whom we can’t meet their needs within the county,” added Ms Cole.

“Sometimes those needs are very extreme and require very specialist care, and children can go up as far as the north of England.”

But Ms Cole said work at Trinity Fields special school in Ystrad Mynach had helped to keep the number of severe cases down, with he directorate managing to negotiate a greater spend on inhouse care rather than out-of-county.

Elsewhere the council is also expecting to overspend its maternity and relief supply costs by £121,000, along with excesses of £18,000 in the home-to-school transport budget.

But a one-off rebate for national non-domestic rate (NNDR) charges of £130,000 against four libraries have helped to reduce the projected overspend.

Finance manager Jane Southcombe added: “If we weren’t accessing these gratuitous  savings, then we would be looking at projected overspends in the region of £600,000.”