Purpose

The County Council has a
statutory duty to provide sufficient school places for all children
who need a place.
 
Increasing provision for
children and young people with Special Educational Needs and
Disabilities (SEND) through the creation of additional places in
Special Support Centres (SSCs) will assist with the aim of enabling
children to attend school locally. Consequently, this will reduce
the number of children and young people with SEND moving from
maintained schools and academies into costly education provision in
the Independent and Non-Maintained Special School (INMS) sector,
often at schools not situated in West Sussex. 
 
In June 2022 approval was given
for the allocation of funding to provide the necessary
accommodation at Edward Bryant School to enable the establishment
of a Special Support Centre (SSC) for 12 children aged 4 to 11
(decision
LS03(22/23) refers). Since that decision
further design work has been undertaken which identified that
further funding is required to enable the project to
proceed
 
Approval is required for the
allocation of additional funding from the Capital Programme to
enable the project to establish a SSC at
Edward Bryant School for 12 children aged 4 to 11 with Social
Communication Needs to progress.
 

Decision

The Cabinet Member for Children and Young
People, Learning and Skills has approved the request for an
additional £529,000, from received S106 contributions, to be
added to the project budget, uplifting it from £2.26m to
£2.789m for the delivery of the 12 place Special Support
Centre at Edward Bryant School.