Funding, legal and financial responsibilities

We have a legal duty to:

provide enough school places for children with SEND
deliver value for money under the Local Government Act 1999
manage the budget responsibly under the Local Government Finance Act 1992

This means we must balance the need for more places with the need to spend public money wisely.

We originally set aside £43 million for the Ivel Valley project. This was based on early estimates in 2022.

In 2024, a more detailed cost estimate showed the project could cost up to £66 million. This created a funding gap, so we paused the project to explore more affordable options.

In February 2025, councillors approved a new budget for all special schools and Additional Resourced Provisions (ARPs):

Total budget: £60.71 million
External funding: £9.09 million
Total council borrowing: £51.62 million (after external funding)

The Ivel Valley project is included within this budget. Any extra funding would come from our wider capital programme, such as mainstream school building or 3 Tier to 2 Tier.

This is the largest capital investment we will have made from our own resources. It’s part of a wider plan to reduce reliance on expensive out-of-area placements – reducing costs and providing more options for children to learn closer to home.

The preferred option (Option 1b) meets the identified need for additional, specialist standard places at Ivel Valley. Spending more on other options would not create more places, so would not represent best value.

Financial timeline

We’ve been working on plans to expand Ivel Valley since 2022. Here’s a summary of what’s happened:

October 2022: we published the Specialist School Place Plan 2022–2030. It included a proposal to rebuild Ivel Valley on a new site and increase places from 245 to 300
October 2023: we updated the plan to increase the number of places to 330
February 2024: we set aside £43 million for the project, based on early estimates
June 2024: a detailed cost estimate showed the project would cost £66 million – £23 million more than budgeted
June 2024: we paused the project due to the funding gap
October 2024: a sub-committee asked for more information about the costs and value for money
December 2024: we found that building in phases would not be cost-effective or meet growing SEND demand in time, as there is only a four-year window, meaning building phase two would need to begin almost immediately phase one was complete. The groundwork, drainage and access works would all need to happen in phase one, as would the building of any communal and reticulation spaces, halls, dining rooms, kitchens etc. meaning the split of cost would be heavily loaded into the initial phase. In addition, building in stages would incur significant extra costs due to duplication of mobilisation and potentially two sets of tender site preparation costs
January 2025: we reviewed other options to deliver the extra places. These are the options being considered in this consultation

Summer 2025

Ivel Valley is made up of two sites, Hitchmead Road (the pre-age 16 site) and The Baulk (the post 16 college site). In 2024, the total capacity of Ivel Valley was 245. Pupil numbers and published capacity have changed over time and continue to do so. There is no formal published capacity for each site individually. Actual numbers of children attending the school can exceed or fall below this number for various reasons including decisions taken by the school or tribunals

The original costs were calculated based upon an expansion to Ivel Valley that did not align with the public expectation for the expansion. This resulted in calculations which if taken forward, would have delivered more than the proposed 330 capacity. As an increase above this level is not required, the costings have been recalculated across all the options

The project remains the same as described to Executive, increasing from the 2024 capacity of 245 children to create an overall capacity of 330 places across Ivel Valley. Clarification of the construction specification for delivery of 270 places to the main (pre-16) school through the proposed options has been achieved, ensuring we deliver the 330 total capacity required.