Challenge 

Like every local authority in England, Bristol has seen rising levels of special educational needs and disabilities (SEND) in schools. However, budgets have not kept up with the increasing need for support and the Council has accrued annual deficits. As part of its agreement with the Department for Education, the Council commissioned PPL and Social Finance to review its current use of “Top-up funding”. Top-up funding provides a school with additional funds to meet the needs of children and young people with SEND; over and above their core budget. 

Our approach 

Between July 2023 and July 2024, PPL and Social Finance worked with the Council’s Education service to complete the review and implement the recommendations. This included a full review of current expenditure in the High Needs Block (HNB), development of alternative options for use of top-up funding; and a 6-week public consultation on the potential options.  

Following Cabinet approval in February 2024, we supported the co-design and implementation of the recommendations with local system partners; across three workstreams: 

  • New Targeted Support Fund – Short-term funding for pupils who, with effective early intervention, can continue to thrive in mainstream settings without the need for significant additional long-term support 
  • New outreach service – Providing support to mainstream settings across Bristol to strengthen the quality and consistency of ordinarily available provision and inclusive practice 
  • Education, health and care (EHC) plan funding process – Move to a costed provision model; and away from Bristol Universal Descriptors and previous banding framework 

 We also led on the wider communication and stakeholder engagement for the project with local system partners. 

Impact 

All implementation work streams have now been handed over to the Council with changes coming live in the 2024/25 academic year. We helped model the financial impact of the changes, which have a £9.6m mitigation target by 2029/30. 

“I have really enjoyed working with both PPL and Social Finance this past year – your teams have provided so much value to our programme demonstrating knowledge, insight, dedication, challenge and support in what has been an incredibly difficult 12 months for education colleagues at the Council. The work you and your teams have done to unpick and outline a new way of managing a finite resource have put us on the right path and we wouldn’t have achieved this without your leadership.”

Senior Project Manager