Purpose

The County Council has a statutory duty to
provide sufficient school places for all children who need a
place.  The demand for places for
children with Special Educational Needs and Disabilities (SEND) is
growing and to address this need the County Council are delivering
a programme to both expand existing Specialist Support Centres
(SSCs) and create new SSCs that are attached to mainstream schools
and academies. This programme also assists with the aim of enabling
children to attend school locally.
 
Consequently, the delivery of this programme
will contribute to reducing 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 sector, often at schools not situated in West
Sussex. 
 
As part of this programme the Worthing High
School Academy Trust agreed that Worthing High School would
increase SEND provision at the school from 14 to 18 places and
redesignate all places from Additional Learning Needs to Social
Communication Needs to reflect the increasing requirement for
places for children with autism. The additional pupils have been
admitted to the SSC since 2022 and supported within the existing
accommodation.  A project is proposed to
remodel the existing SSC to better accommodate the increased pupil
numbers.
 
Approval is required for the allocation of
funding from the Capital Programme to provide the necessary
accommodation for the SSC at Worthing High School to ensure it
meets the need of the increased and changing cohort of pupils. In
addition, the budget will fund all associated fees, ICT and
furniture and equipment.

Decision

The Cabinet Member
for Children and Young People, Learning and Skills has
approved:

(1)The allocation of
£2.470m to fund the necessary remodelling of the Special
Support Centre (SSC) at Worthing High School and work to external
areas as set out in paragraph 2.1 of the report to support the
increase in pupil places.
 

(2)The authorisation to
commence a procurement process and delegation to the Assistant
Director (Property and Assets) to appoint consultants and award
contracts, as required to complete the delivery of the new
accommodation.
 

(3)The delegation of
authority to the Assistant Director (Property and Assets) to submit
the necessary planning application and to obtain any statutory
consents.
 

(4)The delegation of
authority to the Director of Law and Assurance to negotiate and
complete a Development Agreement between the Trust and County
Council