Warning council faces bankruptcy over SEND budget

A local authority will run out of money before the end of the year without government help, its finance chief has said.

Bournemouth, Christchurch and Poole (BCP) Council will have to make cuts and savings of more than 10% of its budget to avoid bankruptcy, a BBC investigation has found.

Although funding for children with special educational needs and disabilities (SEND) is not included in the day-to-day budget, it is the council's biggest financial concern.

Deputy leader Mike Cox told the BBC that without help the authority would "run out of cash".

BCP has accrued a debt of £65m of SEND, with it currently costing the authority £40m a year to pay for external services that it cannot provide itself.

Mr Cox, who is also the council's cabinet member in charge of finance, said the situation was "as bad as it could possibly be".

"If we don't get the cash from the government to support that then, quite rightly, we will have to declare ourselves bankrupt," he said.

"That is nothing to do with the general budget of the council - it's all to do with SEND and its all to do with the cash we have to provide to fund that."

"The SEND process is the elephant in the room, and unless we get action on it very urgently then we're going to be in serious trouble."

The council had already confirmed it would be unable to set a balanced budget for next year, and will run out of money by April - meaning it could be unable to pay some staff.

In March, a council plan to tackle it's SEND overspend was rejected by the Department for Education.

BCP's proposal had included cuts to school spending, which the National Education Union described as "terrifying".

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