NORTH Yorkshire County Council’s Executive will be asked to agree a plan for special educational needs and disabilities education provision when it meets next Tuesday.

The plan aims to create a more inclusive culture, provide more local provision, and reduce costly out-of-county school placements.

The Executive decision on the final plan follows a formal consultation and a year of collaboration, discussion and development.

It is based on detailed forecasts of future demand in each locality to ensure the council is commissioning the right type of provision in the right place to create a more sustainable and effective service.

It outlines initiatives to promote effective early intervention; more specialist targeted and long-term provision in mainstream schools; more places in special schools; a flexible system of teaching and learning and continuation of support through to adulthood.

County Councillor Patrick Mulligan, executive member for education and skills, explains: “The plan is ambitious - we have to use the high needs budget wisely to help this important group of young people achieve their goals in life.

“Many parents have told us that if decisions could be made locally by people who work with their children every day, it would help young people to get the right support more quickly.

“This is especially important when needs change and support needs to be flexible.

“We also want to provide more local provision so that whenever possible children can learn close to their communities in an environment that’s right for them.”

Organisations, parents and carers who responded to the public consultation have been largely positive and have backed the plan’s aspirations. and the importance it places on early identification and intervention.

Key points include establishing satellite specialist provision in the Ripon area and closer working between special and mainstream schools.

There are almost 163,000 children and young people in North Yorkshire and the numbers with special education plans are rising.

There are currently more than 2,650 with plans but this is predicted to rise by nearly another 1,000 by 2022.

Over 10 per cent of the school population is provided with special educational needs support.

High needs funding in 2018/19 has remained broadly similar to 2017/18 despite demand rising.