SCHOOL leaders have opposed plans to transfer money from their main budgets to help fill a £10 million shortfall in funding for special educational needs.

Proposals drawn-up by BCP Council, which manages the overall school budget for the area, would see £4 million taken from the main block to help reduce the deficit.

But at Friday’s meeting of the schools forum, representatives of educational bodies across the conurbation voted in opposition to the full contribution.

The latest forecast puts the high needs block budget for the conurbation at a deficit of £9.8 million in 2020/21.

And council director, Neil Goddard, said it was “not in a position” to put any money into closing the deficit as it had done last year.

“The expectation from the Department for Education is that local authorities balance the High Needs Block within the High Needs Block [budget],” he said. “We have to look at the levers we have to deal with that.

“This is our best compromise in terms of where we think we can go.

“It’s a difficult balance, we know it is, and we have been going through it for a number of years in a row now.”

To meet last year’s smaller shortfall, £2.2 million was contributed from the main school budget along with a further £200,000 from the pre-school pot.

The total was matched by the council from its reserves.

For this year, about a quarter (£2.5 million) of the predicted deficit £9.8 million deficit is to be met through savings proposed by the council.

But £4 million is earmarked to be transferred from the main schools budget – just under two per cent of its total.

Any sum totalling more than 0.5 per cent of the main budget needs to be approved by the education secretary Gavin Williamson.

Schools forum members gave their support to the use of £1.8 million, identified as a surplus for the coming year, but overwhelmingly opposed the use of the remaining £2.2 million from government grants.

They also objected to reallocating money from pre-schools’ budgets following a warning from Sue Johnson, who manages Jack in the Box Nursery in Bournemouth, that it would be “the final nail in the coffin” for several pre-schools.

“We get a lot less money than schools and are going to be hit by a 6.5 per cent increase in the minimum wage [in April],” she said. “That affects a lot of our staff.

“The only way we are going to be able to cover is to charge parents more.

“A lot of pre-schools are likely to close their doors and some are considering closing years.”

A final decision on how the budget will be managed will be made by the council as it sets its budgets in the coming weeks.