Questions re SEN school funding to a non-maintained specialist school - £10K rebate ; Grant recovery

[ChrisInNeed]

Background:

DS (7) has severe S&L impairment & ASD. Currently in mainstream since Reception. He has a placement offer from a specialist S&L school (non-maintained - charitable status). Hopefully the Tribunal Hearing next month for the Part 2/3/4 appeal will support this, so that he can start there from Sep 14.

The offer & fees letter from the specialist (non-maintained) school states:
“These fees will be eligible for a £10,000 rebate when funding is received from the Education Funding Agency. This is normally available from the September term following the child being included on the annual January census.”
....
“As requested these fees now incorporate the Grant Recovery”.

Some questions please

1. Is this £10K rebate from the Education Funding Agency received by the LA or sent directly to the non-maintained school?

1. Any idea what is the “annual January census” referred to? Who conducts this?

1. How can I find out if DS's name is currently on this “annual January census”?

1. Is the census based on presence at the existing mainstream school or at the non-maintained SEN school?

If the latter, expect he won't be there on their Jan 14 census, so presumably the £10K rebate will only commence from Sep 15?

1. Any idea what the "Grant Recovery" is referring to? Is this in addition to the £10K rebate?

1. DS is eligible for free school meals. Any idea if there is there any additional subsidy/rebate/grant he would be eligible to receive towards the specialist school fees or other costs (say transport?), based on this free school meals eligibility?

Thank You

Honestly I would not get involved in any aspect of the funding; that is really not your concern here and I would let the LEA and the school fight that one out. Your main task is to get all the support via the statement that your son needs.

As you are appealing the contents of a statement via Tribunal I would talk to IPSEA about this as a matter of course; their website is www.ipsea.org.uk and they also offer a callback service.

Whilst I agree with Attila in principle going to tribunal over part 4 means that funding is made an issue by the LA argument re the reasonable public expenditure (if this is not strongly supported by amendments agreed at hearing to parts 2 and 3). But you need to bracket the costs of the parental choice and include all costs associated with la choice - including awpu, salt/OT/specialist teachers/taxi etc regardless of agreed packages or existing arrangements.

APWU

Thanks for the responses.

The key argument I will be making is that the specialist S&L school is the only option which can meet DS's needs adequately, so costs do not come into play.

As suggested by KeepOn, I am being prepared with costs related questions, if the cost comparison discussion is indeed triggered.

I raised the questions as I wished to be clear how the rebate would knock off £10K from the total costs of both the LA's option and mine, and if any of my questions will impact this comparison.

As the cost is to public funds generally I don't think it matters, this is just moving money between bodies or departments or budgets - what matters is what the place actually costs.

If the place costs £25k and EFA pays £10k and LA £15k, the cost to the public purse is still £25k and that is the cost the LA will use.

In the same way the LA have to allocate a min £10k cost to any child with a statement as the min per place cost, so they can't say their own schools are already funded and £0 anymore.

To claim the EFA grant the LA have to send the chidls name and school into the EFA in their January Census. That triggers the money.
Some LAs do not report the fact that the child that is in non maintained school - out of sight out of mind, and accordingly the schools don't get paid.
Thus what is being quoted here is the school fees less the £10k - to provide a like for like comparison.
I am not aware of any other grant save transport which is derived directly from the placement at the school.
Hope this helps.

I am currently waiting for final statement to be written for my ds with asd. I have requested an independent school to be named but of course have been told very unlikely if LA can find adequate provision. Do LAs send paperwork to requested ind school to consult or just ignore request and find own provision?