More than £17m is to be pumped into helping hundreds of children with special educational needs into schools in the Liverpool City Region.
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00:00More than £17 million is to be pumped into helping hundreds of children with special educational needs into schools in the Liverpool City region.
00:09Officials from Liverpool Council have spoken of their desire to do better for children across the city but parents have told of the difficulties they've come up against.
00:18This has been acknowledged by senior leaders with Councillor Liam Robinson, leader of Liverpool City Council, telling a specialist meeting last September
00:26it's not only potentially tipping councils financially over the edge, more importantly it's failing many vulnerable young people.
00:33Now the government is to invest tens of millions of pounds across the city region as part of a significant funding deal for special educational needs nationally.
00:42Bridget Phillipson, Education Secretary, said more needed to be done to support local authorities to improve outcomes amid continuing financial pressures.
00:51According to the Department for Education, fewer than 1 in 10 mainstream schools have SEN units or resource provision specialist facilities which provide more intensive support for pupils with SEND.
01:02As of October last year, more than 8,000 children and young people, up to 25 in Liverpool, were recorded as receiving an ECHP, a legal document which describes their special educational needs.
01:15This has more than doubled in the past three years when around 4,000 children were noted as requiring SEND support in February 2022.
01:24Around a third of the money, more than £5 million, will be spent in Liverpool.
01:29More than £3.5 million will be allocated to Sefton with £2.8 million given to Wirral.
01:35Knowsley will receive £2.3 million with a further £2 million going to St Helens as £1.1 million is spent in Halton.