An extra £9.1 million over three years is needed for SEND services due to Suffolk County Council’s initial investment being ‘insufficient’.

Cllr Andrew Reid, who is responsible for education and SEND, will be presenting a bid for an extra £9.1 million investment into special needs services during the county council’s cabinet meeting next Wednesday.

The council papers state extra money is needed after February’s £4.4 million investment, £3.4 million of which will be recurring in the following years, is ‘insufficient’ to meet the improvement and transformation required to meet the council’s targets.

The papers state: “Inclusion services staff are the council’s most valuable and important SEND improvement asset.

“A well-trained and stable Family Services workforce with workloads and an environment that supports their wellbeing is critical to achieving the required improvements in timeliness, quality and communication with children and young people with SEND and their parents, carers and families.”

Targets include, for instance, issuing 49.1 per cent of new Education, Health and Care Plans (EHCPs) within the statutory 20 weeks by September 2025 — Cllr Reid said his goal would be to surpass this level by the end of February next year.

If approved, the new bid for investment would see £2.6 million extra for the rest of this financial year, £3 million in 2025/26, and £3.5 million in 2026/27 — investment for the next two financial years would be subject to ongoing review.

This year’s money would be taken from the council’s reserves and broken down as £1.3 million for operational delivery, £800,000 for improvement and transformation, and £500,000 as a contingency to cover sickness absence and productivity assumptions.

This comes as the council’s latest useable reserves position, to be presented during the same meeting, shows a £14.7 million decrease during 2023/24, from £194.8 million to £180.1 million — at the same time, the Dedicated Schools Grant reserve, reduced by £26.4 million, from negative £27.7 million to negative £54.1 million.

Cllr Reid’s report reads: “It is recognised that the scale of this increased resourcing will be very challenging to meet at a time of very high pressure on public service finances but it is necessary to address this high priority for the council and to better support children and young people with SEND in Suffolk.”

Another option is also being proposed which would leave current resources as they are and, instead, include a temporary £1 million investment — this is not recommended as it means only 40 per cent of EHCPs will be delivered within the statutory deadline by the time of the Ofsted/CQC monitoring visit in summer 2025.

The papers also point out despite the bid for extra money, more investment will be needed in SEND family services after the 2025/26 financial year.

The extra money is expected to result in more children getting a high-quality EHCP in a timely way and one which is reviewed regularly in order to adapt to children’s needs.