A High Court battle has begun over a controversial bailout of Bristol’s schools budget after the deal was agreed in secret. Barristers are trying to convince a judge that Bristol City Council should have consulted parents before the decision was made about the impact on their children.
The judicial review into the Safety Valve agreement, between Bristol City Council and the Department for Education, started on Tuesday, January 28, and is due to last two and a half days. The government agreed to write off £53 million of Bristol’s ballooning budget deficit.
But neither parents nor the wider public were informed of the deal before the cabinet signed off the deal early last year. Watkins Solicitors, a Bristol-based law firm, is bringing the review in the High Court, with a similar deal signed by Devon County Council also facing a legal challenge.
Steve Broach KC, on behalf of the claimants, told the judge, Mr Justice Linden, that many councils have overspent their schools budget, not because of financial incompetence but due to rising demand and a legal duty to provide support for some disabled children, while government funding has not kept up.
This means there’s “no wriggle room for local authorities, it must be provided”, leading to a systematic problem across England and a national SEND crisis. The Department for Education agreed to give Bristol £53 million, paid in tranches over several years, on the condition the council takes action to make its spending more sustainable and balance the books.
According to Mr Broach, this necessarily means sending fewer children to specialist schools and keeping more in mainstream ones instead. There are 38 councils with a Safety Valve deal, 16 of which aren’t on track to clear their deficits, showing “how difficult it is for local authorities to reduce spending in this area, given the absolute duties and rising demand”.
The government is now expected to take action, given the scale of the problem, to address the issue on a national level. For Bristol to clear its deficit by the 2029 deadline, spending on special needs would need to be cut by a quarter, Mr Broach said. £10 million less would need to be spent in 2029-30 compared to 2023-24.
Given how these changes would affect children, their parents should legally have been consulted before council bosses decided to sign up to the Safety Valve deal. He added: “It’s something that can and should have been consulted on. The consultation would need to have taken place at a formative stage.”
Despite the bailout, Bristol is still struggling with the deficit in its schools budget. The latest figures show that a deficit of £52 million is expected this March, including the cash that the government has already provided.
Former Labour mayor Marvin Rees previously said the government prevented the council from talking about the Safety Valve programme publicly, before the bailout deal had been agreed. But the Department for Education later disputed this, and claimed the council had been free to discuss the matter.
The hearing also involves Devon County Council, which entered into a similar bailout deal. The deal includes promises to eliminate the budget deficit and balance the books, with a focus on early intervention and more support within mainstream schools, instead of relying on expensive independent specialist schools.
According to Mr Broach, Devon’s deal also includes reducing spending by a fifth over nine years, and “slowing down and flattening” the number of education, health and care plans granted. This would reduce the number of places in specialist schools, with huge effects on disabled children.
A cabinet report setting out Devon’s deal, prepared for councillors before they voted to approve the agreement, lacked key information including the scale of cutbacks needed. The “Panglossian” report also lacked an assessment of how disabled children were at risk of being impacted by the cuts, and rebalancing to mainstream schools and away from specialist places.
Barristers representing Bristol City Council and Devon County Council had not yet set out their arguments on the first day of the hearing. The hearing continues. The judge is not expected to make a decision over the agreements straight away, but instead adjourn the case and produce a written judgement in a few weeks.