What guidance is the Minister providing to local authorities to ensure that school budgets reflect the additional staffing resources that are needed to meet the new requirements as stated in the Additional Learning Needs and Education Tribunal (Wales) Act 2018?
As the roll-out of the Additional Learning Needs Act 2018 continues I recognise that schools and local authorities need additional funding for staff resource to move children from the SEN system to the ALN system. Therefore, in January I announced an additional £8 million to be allocated to schools, nurseries, local authorities and Pupil Referral Units and in this financial year I have made a further £6.6m available to continue to support moving children on to the ALN system. Our terms for this funding specify that it should be used by local authorities to increase capacity to move children from the SEN to ALN system, develop practitioner knowledge on ALN and collaborate with partners across Wales to develop a national implementation network for successful adoption of the new ALN system.
Local authorities receive funding for special educational needs (SEN) and additional learning needs (ALN) provision from the Welsh Government via the Revenue Support Grant (RSG). The RSG is not ring fenced as the Welsh Government considers local authorities are best placed to judge local needs and circumstances and to fund SEN/ALN provision accordingly. Once the RSG is distributed, individual authorities are responsible for setting budgets for their mainstream and special schools and the local provision that they support.
Each LA must have a schools budget forum where they can engage with schools on financial matters and schools can contribute to this process and influence decisions. As part of their role in ensuring that needs are matched by appropriate provision, all LAs should work with their mainstream and special schools to ensure their school funding arrangements are effective in supporting and raising the achievement of all children with SEN/ALN.
The new ALN system focuses on improving planning to meet the needs of children and young people with ALN and is intended to ensure better access to appropriate provision. It also aims to increase early identification of needs and early intervention, with a view to preventing long term issues and costly interventions.
Over the last four years, the Welsh Government invested £20m of extra funding for the ALN Transformation programme, which supported the skills development of the education workforce to help build capacity within the system and ensure learners’ needs can be met in a range of education settings.
Our budget for 2022-23 includes £21 million to support children and young people with ALN and successfully deliver upon the ambitions of ALN reforms. Total funding of £9.155m is being made available across Wales for ALN Learner Provision, which is an increase from £7.1 in previous years.