City council to go it alone on education services for disabled children

Hull Council has been the lead authority on a cross-border service for children and young people with hearing, vision and physical disabilities, but that has now been described as “no longer fit for purpose”.

A report to the city council’s Cabinet next Monday said: “We would like to consider a number of options for the future delivery of these services.

“It is clear that the needs of the four respective local authorities under the joint arrangement differ considerably.

“We want to ensure that the needs of Hull children and young people are met, that the standard of provision is high quality, and the outcomes for these children are good.”

The report added: “We have excellent purpose-built provision in Sirius (academy) and at Christopher Pickering (primary school), and will be able to direct all of our resources to meeting Hull pupils’ needs in all school settings, rather than having to also balance the competing needs of other local authorities.”

The report said all four councils recognised the need for a fresh start and that the joint programme had been “increasingly challenged” when it came to providing performance data and financial reporting, and when complying with policies and procedures appropriate across the four councils.

The report, which recommends cabinet approval for the consultation, shows that there are a total of 226 children in Hull receiving support from the hearing impaired service, 127 who are supported by the vision impaired service, and 445 supported by the education service for the physically disabled.

The majority are supported in mainstream settings.

A total of 117 staff are employed by the service across the four authorities.

The report said it was likely that some employed by Hull would be “displaced”, although the exact impact on jobs would not be known until the consultation ended and a future model was agreed.