| SPOTLIGHT |
A judicial review claim has been issued on behalf of a child against Devon County Council, challenging its decision to enter into a ‘safety valve agreement’ with the Department for Education.
The Safety Valve intervention programme is designed to help local authorities tackle overspending on Special Educational Needs and Disabilities (SEND) services.
Safety valve agreements (SVAs) are written agreements by individual local authorities with the Department for Education (DfE), agreeing that the DfE will “bail out” local authorities that have over-spent on their high needs budgets.
In exchange for financial assistance, local authorities are asked to agree to a plan which will eventually return them to a point where their spending is within budget.
According to law firm Rook Irwin Sweeney, there are “serious concerns” about the lawfulness of SVAs, including amongst charities and commentators in the SEND community, who are concerned that SVAs amount to “binding commitments by local authorities to make cuts to SEND provision in such a way that may undermine their ability to comply with their legal duties to meet children and young people’s special educational needs”.
Through its SVA with the government, Devon County Council has committed to ‘mitigate’ its SEND overspend by £7m in 2024/25, around £19m in 2025/26, and around £12m in 2026/2027.
It has stated that it will do this by reducing the number of children and young people on EHCPs and reducing its reliance on independent specialist provision.
“However, it has provided sparse details about how these measures will be implemented in practice and what the impact on children and young people in Devon will be,” said Rook Irwin Sweeney.
The claimant in the case is a child with SEND, whose parent acts as litigation friend.
The parent is concerned that the council’s commitment to such significant reductions to its SEND spending have “not been properly considered, and may result in their child’s needs, and the needs of other children and young people in Devon, not being met”.
The legal grounds of claim, issued on 11 June 2024, include that the council’s decision to enter into the SVA was ‘irrational’ and that it breached section 149 of the Equality Act 2010, which requires public bodies to consider the impact of any decision on people with protected characteristics, including disabled people.
Rook Irwin Sweeney are instructed on behalf of the child and Ollie Persey, barrister at Garden Court Chambers, acts as counsel.
A spokesperson for Devon County Council said: "We are aware of the application and will cooperate fully with any subsequent legal process."
Lottie Winson
