What is the purpose of this resource pack?

This is a voluntary, online self-evaluation tool to help your children’s trust to improve value for money in the provision it makes for children and young people with special educational needs and disabilities (SEND) and additional educational needs (AEN). The self-assessment provides opportunities for discussion amongst decision makers about current practice. It sets standards for performance with explanations of why these are important and it sign-posts further information and guidance. Completion of the self-assessment generates an action plan to help your children’s trust set its own agenda for improvement.

What is value for money?

Put simply, value for money (VFM) is about obtaining the maximum benefit with the resources available. It means achieving the right local balance between economy, efficiency and effectiveness (the 3Es), spending less, spending well and spending wisely. This means that VFM not only measures the cost of goods and services but also takes account of the mix of cost with quality, resource use, fitness for purpose and timeliness to judge whether or not, together, they constitute good value.

Improving value for money means:

• getting better outcomes or improved quality for the same spend;
• getting better outcomes or improved quality commensurate with any increase in spend; or
• getting the same or better outcomes or quality for a reduction in spend.

How can your children’s trust improve value for money in services for SEND and AEN?

Very substantial sums of public money are allocated nationally to ensure that the special educational needs of pupils are met. In 2009/10, budget information collected by the Department for Children, Schools and Families (DCSF) from local authorities showed total planned spending on the provision of education for pupils with special educational needs was almost £5.2 billion. This is up from almost £2.8 billion in 2000/01, an increase of 87.8 per cent.

The figure of £5.2 billion includes:

• £1.6 billion which is delegated directly to maintained special schools;
• £2.1 billion which is delegated directly to maintained mainstream schools; and
• £1.5 billion which is retained centrally by local authorities.

Expenditure is also incurred by local health organisations, by private and voluntary sector providers and by the local authority’s services for children and young people with disabilities. Children’s trusts are responsible for ensuring that all partners work together to improve outcomes for local children, including those with SEND and AEN. Hence trusts need to ensure that they have an appropriate strategic framework to discharge their duties and that all relevant income is brought together and deployed effectively in order to achieve and improve value for money.

We have identified five areas where children’s trusts can improve value for money.

• Needs – local SEND and AEN needs are accurately identified.
• Strategy – coherent plans are driving improvement.
• Finance – available resources are used to best effect.
• Provision – interventions and services effectively support needs.
• Outcomes – evaluation confirms that provision makes a positive difference.

How does the resource pack work?

The resource pack asks you to consider your practice in each of the five areas of activity which contribute to the effective management of SEND and AEN. We provide practice examples drawn from our fieldwork and from other published sources. An action plan will suggest ways of improving value for money activities where you describe what you do as ‘not at all’ or ‘to some extent’ in the self-assessment.

Who is this resource pack for?

This resource pack is for all those with responsibility for managing resources in children’s trusts, including:

• members of the children’s trust board;
• elected members, especially lead members for children and young people and chairs of relevant scrutiny panels;
• directors of children’s services;
• officers with senior responsibility for SEND and AEN;
• officers with senior responsibility for services for disabled children;
• staff with senior responsibility for children’s services in primary care trusts;
• children’s services finance officers;
• commissioners and joint commissioners of children’s services; and
• head teachers with wider area responsibility for SEND and AEN decision-making – for example through their membership of a schools forum.

What is the suggested process?

Carrying out a self-assessment of partnership activity requires partners to work together as a group. This enables views to be shared and compared to see if there are differences and to enable those involved to fully appreciate current arrangements. The group could be the relevant themed sub-group of the children’s trust or a wider group, including children’s trust partners and stakeholders who can bring a fresh perspective. The involvement of a board member champion, through whom the team reports to the board, will ensure that the project has sufficient status and priority in implementing change. It will be particularly useful to complete the self-assessment before the start of the annual financial planning process.

All relevant materials can be downloaded to encourage offline discussion and fact finding by partners. When responses to the self-assessment have been agreed, they should be recorded online to generate an action plan. We suggest that the action plan is discussed and agreed by the children’s trust board or its executive group to ensure that the plan carries sufficient authority.

Service managers across the partnership can also use the resource pack as a whole or with a focus on areas prioritised for improvement. The standards set by the self-assessment, the linked guidance and the practice examples provide support for improvement within partner organisations.

Further information and key references

Further guidance on value for money can be found at the DCSF value for money unit website.

This resource pack complements the Audit Commission’s VFM in SEN and AEN resource pack for schools and the Improving Children's Trusts resource pack

Removing Barriers to Achievement – the government’s strategy for SEN

SEN Code of Practice

Breaking the Link Between Special Educational Needs and Low Attainment

Getting started

To start using the pack, please click on the next button at the bottom of this page. Please identify your local authority number to help us record use of the tool.