Cash boost will help special needs education in Calderdale

Members of the full Calderdale Council agreed the cash should be accepted into its capital programme when it met this week.

Cabinet member for Resources, Performance and Business Change, Coun Jane Scullion (Lab, Luddenden Foot) said it was a strange quirk but when the council received grant money members had to vote to accept it into their budget and proposed that on behalf of the people of Calderdale they did so.

Conservative Group Leader Coun Scott Benton (Brighouse) said it was a great initiative his group would be supporting and the cash had come from a pot of money provided by the Government.

“It is money from the Government to improve the quality of special needs education,” he said.

Councillors agreed to accept the fully-funded Special Provision Fund Capital Scheme which will use the £616,000 grant funding into the capital programme.

The council’s Director of Children and Young People’s Services, Julie Jenkins, should also be given delegated authority to deliver the programme of works to meet the aims of the funding, councillors also agreed.