Purpose

Proposed decision
–The Cabinet Member for Education and
Skills:
 

AGREE to issue a Public Notice to
permanently remove residential provision at Broomhill Bank School
North (Hextable) and following a
representation period of four weeks with no substantive objections
received, implement the decision

 

DELEGATE authority to the Corporate
Director of Children, Young People and Education to Issue a Public
Notice

 

DELEGATE authority for the Corporate
Director of Children, Young People and Education, in consultation
with the Cabinet Member for Education and Skills to take relevant
actions including but not limited to entering into relevant
contracts or other legal agreements as required, to implement the
decision, subject to no new substantive objections received during
the notice period

 
Reason for the decision
 
Kent County Council
(KCC) as the Local Authority (LA) has a commitment to provide
education, including Special School placements for children and
young people within their locality, so that they can remain with
their families. This follows national direction outlined in the
Children’s Wellbeing and Schools Bill and the Families First
Partnership Programme.
 
The proposal to
permanently remove residential provision at Broomhill Bank School
North (Hextable), is driven by an
assessment by KCC of the school’s residential provision and
need in the local area. This assessment has indicated that there is
no longer a requirement for KCC to continue to commission
residential placements at Broomhill Bank School North (Hextable).
 
Up to, and including
this academic year, placements in Broomhill Bank North
(Hextable) residential provision have
been for various reasons and not based on one prescribed set of
criteria. Some of these reasons include:

·        
Distance from home to school

·        
Parental requests for placement (not linked to
Social Care Assessment)

·        
Different placement approaches from other
LAs

 
KCC school placement
decisions now focus on meeting a young person’s needs in a
local provision, and where appropriate, those young people are
supported by other services such as Social Care in line with their
Education Health and Care Plan.
 
The approach most
commonly employed now when placing children and young people in
specialist residential provision is that the young person would
have statutory care involvement, and the placement is made to meet
care needs where local day specialist provision is not an option.
This means that the cost of such placements is shared across
Education and Social Care.
 
Based on the approach
described above, the students who have previously been placed in
residential provision at Broomhill Bank North (Hextable) would no longer meet the criteria for a
residential placement. This would be in line with the national
direction outlined in the Families First Partnership
Programme.
 
Background – Provide brief additional context
 
Broomhill Bank School
is a co-educational Foundation Special School for students aged
11-19 who have communication and interaction difficulties associated with autism and speech, language and
communication needs. Following an inspection
that took place in October 2023, Ofsted deemed Broomhill Bank
School to be a ‘GOOD’ school. SinceSeptember 2015 Broomhill Bank School North (Hextable) has offered residential provision.
Following an inspection that took place in November 2024, Ofsted
deemed this provision to be ‘OUTSTANDING’.
 
However, as explained
above, the students who have previously been placed in residential
provision at Broomhill Bank North (Hextable) would no longer meet the criteria for a
residential placement. As such, it has been identified that there
is not the requirement, or need, for KCC to continue
tocommission residential placements at
Broomhill Bank School North (Hextable).
This has been discussed with the Executive Headteacher of the
school.
 
For this reason, it is
the intention that the residential provision will close following
the departure of the students who are currently using the
provision, all of whom are expected to leave the school at the end
of this academic year. Therefore, the Broomhill Bank
School Senior Leadership Team and
Governing Body have been working with KCC Officers to ensure that
provision for the remaining residential students would not be
adversely affected up to their leaving date.
 
KCC are proposing that
the process for statutory closure of the provision is progressed,
with an expected closure date from 1 September 2025.
 
Options (other options considered but discarded)
 
Option 1: Do
Nothing
Retain the residential
provision, despite the placements not being made in line with the
approach described above. This is not a viable option as this goes
against KCC’s aspiration to ensure children and
young people’s needs are met in a local
provision with support from other services such as Social Care in
line with their Education Health and Care Plan, where
appropriate.
 
Option 2: Change the
Admissions Criteria
Retain the residential
provision but change the admissions criteria for the students who
would receive placements at Broomhill Bank School North
(Hextable) to match the approach
described above. Whilst this appears to be reasonable alternative,
due to the needs of the young people who are placed at Broomhill
Bank School North (Hextable), the
number who would meet that criteria would be minimal, and therefore
adversely affect the financial viability of the
provision.
 
 
 
 
How the
proposed decision supports the
Framing Kent's Future
- Our Council Strategy 2022-2026
 
The
'Securing Kent's Future' strategy outlines the measures that KCC
intend to take to ensure that Kent remains financially stable, now
and long into the future. It describes the statutory
priorities.
 
This
proposed decision supports Priority 1 of Framing Kent’s
Future-Our Council Strategy 2022-2026:

·        
Priority 1: Levelling Up Kent – It will help maintain KCC’s strategic role in supporting
schools in Kent to deliver accessible, high quality education
provision for all families.
 
How the
proposed decision supports Securing Kent’s Future
2022-2026:
Securing Kents Future
- Budget Recovery Strategy.pdf
 
This proposed decision
is compliant with Objective 1 of Securing Kent’s Future, KCC
as the LA proposes to remove the Residential Provision at Broomhill
Bank School North (Hextable).This proposal is necessary
for KCC to continue to deliver the statutory duty, in a
cost-effective way, in line with the guidelines described in the
Securing Kent's Future 2022-2026 strategy.
 

Financial Implications

 
Revenue funding for
special school places is met from the High Needs Block of the
Dedicated Schools Grant, a specific ring-fenced grant, provided by
the Department of Education. The High Needs Block is overspent by
c17% and the Council is part of the Safety Valve Programme where
central government are providing additional funding to help pay off
the accumulated deficit created from this historic overspend (since
2018-19), on the condition the Council puts in place plans to
achieve best value for money under the current statutory
arrangements with an aim to return to an in-year breakeven position
in future years.
 
Ensuring we meet
children’s needs more locally where possible, and reducing
our dependency on residential special school provision, by only
retaining our residential provision for children who are more
likely to have a statutory care involvement, is part of our savings
strategy to reduce spending on the High Needs Block. By permanently
removing residential provision at Broomhill Bank School North
(Hextable) it would save the authority
approximately £40,000 per place.
 
A residential weekday
place at Broomhill Bank School North (Hextable) costs nearly £62,000 for each
student per academic year, and an assessment by KCC has identified
that there is no longer a requirement or need for KCC to continue
to commission residential placements at Broomhill Bank School North
(Hextable). Day placements at Broomhill
Bank School North (Hextable) are on
average £20,500 for 2025/26.
 
From 1 September 2025,
all students attending the school will be day students and to
continue to run the residential offer at Broomhill Bank costs a
minimum of £480,000 a year to maintain.
 
There may be one off
redundancy costs associated with this proposal, but work is ongoing
with the school to ensure these costs are kept to a minimum through
working with the affected staff to identify alternative employment
opportunities. In the first instance the
schools would ordinarily be expected to fund these costs. However,
if this is deemed unaffordable, funding would be made available
through the school redundancy fund (paid by the Council but funded
from school contributions). Due to the exceptional nature of this
proposal, KCC has agreed to meet the one-off redundancy costs. At
the time of drafting this report the potential costs are
anticipated to be less than £20,000.
 
The Local Authority is
responsible for funding home to school transport for eligible
children. By removing the residential offer may increase home to
school transport costs to the authority if children are eligible
for local authority funded travel to school, as they would then be
travelling to and from school on a daily basis. By continuing to
pursue our aim to meet children’s needs as locally as
possible, should keep these extra costs to a minimum, by securing
more efficient transport. The average cost of transporting an
eligible child with SEN to school is £8,500 per year, this
cost would be met from the Home to School Transport
Budget.
 
There are no direct
capital implications arising from this proposal. The buildings will
be repurposed to support the educational delivery for incoming Year
7 students with a wider dimension of need.
 
Legal
Implications
 
Under the Children and
Families Act 2014 KCC has a duty ‘to support the child and
his or her parent, or the young person, in order to facilitate the
development of the child or young person and to help him or her
achieve the best possible educational and other outcomes’. By
ensuring we have appropriate provision as locally as possible, we
are delivering on our obligation in accordance with this
legislation.
 
Local Authorities
need to deliver their statutory duties and be aware
of non-statutory guidance and advice which relate to
children and young people SEN. These are:

·        
Department for Education-Making significant changes
to an academy 2024: non-statutory guidance on collaborative school
place planning and making organisational changes to
academies.

·        
The SEND Code of Practice places requirements on
Local Authorities to: provide access to advice from a suitably
qualified person as part of the EHCP process and subsequent
“assess, plan, do, review” cycles, and make appropriate
provision for those with an EHC plan in the 0-25 range.

·        
Sufficiency Duties: KCC is under a statutory duty to
contribute towards the spiritual, moral, mental and physical
development of the community by securing that efficient primary
education and secondary education are available to meet the needs
of the population of their area: section 13 of the Education Act
1996 (“the 1996 Act”).

·        
KCC must ensure that its education functions are
exercised by the authority with a view to promoting high standards,
ensuring fair access to opportunity for education and training, and
promoting the fulfilment of learning potential by every person
under the age of 20 and those over the age of 20 and for whom an
EHC Plan is maintained: section 13A. By section 14, KCC must secure
that sufficient schools for providing primary and secondary
education are available for their area, defined as being sufficient
in number, character and equipment to provide for all pupils the
opportunity of appropriate education.

·        
Under section 27 of the Children and Families Act
2014 (“the 2014 Act”), KCC is under a duty to keep
under review the educational provision, training provision and
social care provision made in its area (and outside it) for
children and young people who have special educational needs or a
disability. KCC must consider the extent to which its provision is
sufficient to meet the educational needs, training needs and social
care needs of the children and young people concerned.

·        
Children’s Wellbeing and Schools Bill and the
Families First Partnership Programme: a direction nationally aimed
to improve children’s wellbeing and support families in need.
The Bill includes Local Authorities commitment to provide
education, including Special School placement, within a child and
young person’s locality, so that children and young people
can remain with their families.
 
All individual proposals to
either establish new, expand current or cease current provision
will be required to go through the statutory process under the
School Organisation (Prescribed Alterations to Maintained Schools)
(England) Regulations 2013 and Making Significant Changes to an
Academy (non-statutory guidance on collaborative school place
planning, October 2024). As part of this process, a public
consultation was undertaken ahead of presentation of the proposal
to CYPE Cabinet Committee. Should the Cabinet Member agree to the
permanent removal of residential provision at Broomhill Bank School
North (Hextable), a Public Notice will
be issued for a period of 4 weeks.
 

Decision

As Cabinet Member for Education and Skills, I
agree to:
 

AGREE to issue a Public Notice to
permanently remove residential provision at Broomhill Bank School
North (Hextable) and following a representation period of four
weeks with no substantive objections received, implement the
decision

 

DELEGATE authority to the Corporate
Director of Children, Young People and Education to Issue a Public
Notice

 

DELEGATE authority for the Corporate
Director of Children, Young People and Education, in consultation
with the Cabinet Member for Education and Skills to take relevant
actions including but not limited to entering into relevant
contracts or other legal agreements as required, to implement the
decision, subject to no new substantive objections received during
the notice period