Petition signed by thousands calls on BCP Council to reject government’s Safety Valve programme

A petition signed by nearly 2,500 people is calling on BCP Council to reject government calls to sign up to a multimillion-pound bail-out scheme that would push more children with special needs into mainstream schools.

As reported in the A&T, the cash-strapped authority has been asked by the Department for Education to sign up to its so-called Safety Valve programme, which is designed to bail out struggling councils that have overspent on their “high needs” budget.

In exchange, councils must curb spending on their provision for SEND children to avoid the deficit – which for BCP stands at £35.8m – building up again.

This would mean slashing the number of children with special needs being placed in independent specialist schools, which is costly to the council, instead putting requirements on mainstream schools already struggling under shrinking budgets to provide places.

The schools budget could also be slashed by up to 11% and, according to the petition, the reserves of “well-run schools could be raided”.

The hugely contentious move has sparked a public backlash from parents and schools across the conurbation, and a petition was handed over to members of the latest full BCP Council meeting.

Lead petitioner Adam Sofianos, of campaign group Bournemouth, Christchurch and Poole Alliance for Children and Schools (BCPACS), gave an impassioned speech in which he accused the council of “abandoning children”.

“Services are already in crisis,” he said. “Last year English councils were found to have broken the law in 98% of all SEND tribunal cases, and as they slip further and further away from their statutory duties more and more children are left behind.

“Safety Valve is a cruel deception – it won’t save BCP Council from bankruptcy because it only looks forward – a victim-blaming policy which above all punishes vulnerable children.

“Tonight we ask one thing of you – be better. Stand up for families. Demand a solution to the deficit trap. Combine with other councils in a single voice and challenge a higher authority.”

Mr Sofianos said while some councils signed up to the Safety Valve programme had been unable to hit targets on reducing their deficits, others had by “pushing 90% of their SEND children into mainstream schools”.

“In Bury – and this is the head on the stick outside the Tower of London – they missed their targets, they had their funding withdrawn, and they had to raid school reserves. They had to raid their own reserves,” he said.

The government currently has in place a “statutory override” which allows local authorities to ringfence their Dedicated Schools Grant (DSG) away from their core budgets.

BCP Council has kept the £63m deficit on its schools budget off its balance sheets.

This reprieve ends in March 2026, and when it does many councils across the country are expected to be pushed into insolvency.

BCP Labour councillors Patrick Canavan and Peter Cooper put forward a motion for the council to request the override be “urgently extended” to give local authorities “time and space to address the crisis in SEND funding and services”.

The motion also called for the chief executive of BCP Council to write to the Secretary of State for Education “expressing the urgent need for additional funding or deficit write-off for all local authorities”.

These motions were agreed unanimously.