The £900,000 a year would go towards paying for the cost of building Arbour Vale specialist school – but comes as Slough’s special educational needs budget faces a £19 million deficit within two years.
Slough Borough Council says charging the money is necessary to comply with how schools should be funded but warns it could add more pressure on special educational needs spending ‘without necessarily being able to afford it’.
Arbour Vale School’s building was constructed under a scheme known as Private Finance Initiative, or PFI, along with Beechwood and Penn Wood schools.
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Under PFI deals, public sector buildings such as schools and hospitals were constructed and owned by private companies.
They would then receive regular public sector payments for the construction and use of the building over several decades until the contract runs out and the building returns to public ownership.
However Slough Borough Council says that from the outset there was a ‘shortfall’ between the costs of the 2006 PFI contracts and the money it received from government grants and other sources to pay for them.
The council says this ‘affordability gap’ is a ‘common feature of school PFI contracts’.
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However it says that ‘unusually’ this gap has been paid for out of the council’s general fund rather than the separate dedicated schools grant budget.
Figures provided by the council show that the PFI contracts cost just over £8 million last year of which £1.5 million was paid for from the council’s general fund.
Council documents say: “It is unusual for the affordability gap on a PFI contract, that is solely about provision for schools and academies, to be charged to the general fund, rather than to the dedicated schools grant.”
They say that the gap should instead be paid for from a ‘PFI factor’ in mainstream schools funding from the government, and from the ‘high needs block’ for special educational needs.
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The council says that doing this will make it more compliant with how PFI should be paid for, but also hopes it will encourage the government to award it some £600,000 a year more in PFI support.
However it warns that this will add £900,000 to the high needs budget a year to pay for Arbour Vale Schools’ proportion of the costs.
It would be paid annually until the PFI contract expires in 2035.
However it comes at a time when councils already face a crisis due to rocketing demands and costs for special needs funding.
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Slough Borough Council consulted head teachers on the changes at a Schools Forum meeting on Wednesday, May 7.
Council schools funding consultant David Tully warned it would mean ‘merely adding to the burden on the high needs block without necessarily being able to afford it within the high needs funding that currently exists – we recognise this’.
Marish Academy Trust headteacher Gill Denham warned that adding the £900,000 a year would make the special educational needs deficit ‘massively higher’.
However the forum agreed to support the council’s plan.
