Today Bridget Phillipson announced that the Safety Valve scheme has been closed to new entrants. In a press release announcing a range of measures, she stated: “the government has also confirmed that it will not enter any more of its Safety Valve agreements for councils in financial deficits, pending wider reform of the whole system to prioritise early intervention, properly supporting councils to bring their finances under control.”

On the surface, this is good news. Those local authorities, such as BCP, who were in Safety Valve limbo following the rejection of their bids by the Department for Education, will not be entering the scheme. Parents and schools in areas with growing deficits can also feel relieved that they won’t be subject to one of these damaging agreements. When I set up this site at the start of 2024, Safety Valve was on the radar of very few people. Awareness of the scheme, media coverage and pressure on MPs has increased through the year, thanks to tireless campaigning by the SEND community. It’s incredible that the scheme is being referenced at all in an announcement like this.

To recap, 38 local authorities are in Safety Valve agreements, which incentivise local authorities to cut their spending on SEND. These local authorities all have tremendous levels of debt, and the scheme promised relatively small amounts towards their annual overspend if they met targets for cuts. Essentially, it’s blackmailing local authorities at risk of bankruptcy because they haven’t been given the funding needed to meet their statutory duties towards disabled children.

These agreements have caused extreme damage across England, as the affected local authorities scramble to reduce their spending. IPSEA investigated and found a great deal of unlawful behaviour caused by these schemes. Information that was made public showed LAs intending to slash the number of plans issued, reduce the number of specialist placements and more.

Several agreements failed when targets could not be met, with Cambridgeshire being the latest LA to submit a revised plan after failing to meet their targets. The agreements haven’t even halted the ongoing financial crisis, with 40% of LAs in the agreements saying they were still at risk of the LA version of bankruptcy.

The agreements have been put in place with little to no consideration for the effect on vulnerable children, families and schools. Many local authorities entered into these agreements without consultation, and without properly considering their impact. Bristol kept their involvement in the scheme entirely away from public scrutiny until shortly before their agreement was signed. The actions of two local authorities, Devon and Bristol relating to their handling of Safety Valve are now the subject of three judicial review cases. These cases have been brought together into a “rolled-up hearing” which is due to be heard around February - we will keep you updated.

The government recently signed a contract with ISOS Partnership to review the impact of Safety Valve agreements, at least three years too late. If you’re excited at the prospect of some scrutiny, don’t be - ISOS were themselves involved in the development of some of the Safety Valve schemes, and they penned the horribly biased LA-funded report in July which called disabled children an “existential threat” to LA finances. They recommended radical reforms including scrapping the SEND tribunal and redefining SEND itself (there’s also a video on that report here.)

This statement on Safety Valve comes alongside a raft of measures including £740m capital funding to “pave the way for more pupils with special educational needs and disabilities (SEND) to achieve and thrive in mainstream schools”. The government remains convinced that almost all disabled children can be educated in a mainstream setting and they are busily piling all of their eggs in that basket without, it seems, much regard to whether this is true. The recent Delivering Better Value report says they can reduce specialist placements by tens of thousands and increase the number of children in hubs by 370%.

Closing the scheme to new entrants is obviously a positive first step, and I’m grateful to every parent, school, campaigner and person who signed our petition, wrote to and met with MPs, and raised awareness about this damaging scheme. It has affected not just disabled children, but all children and all schools in these areas and it’s important we keep raising awareness.

There is no clarity on what will happen to those already in the scheme, or what will happen to the billions in SEND deficits which will become due in April 2026 as things stand. We cannot stop now - it’s vital that we continue to campaign against these agreements to ensure that decisions are made based on a child’s needs and legal rights, not a target for spending cuts.

I’m sure there’ll be more to come on this, but huge thanks to everyone who has supported the campaign so far. This is an important first step, but there’s still a long way to go.