Councils are 鈥渘ot interested in making life difficult for academies just for the sake of it鈥 with new powers to oppose expansions, a senior local authority official has insisted. But Rachael Wardell, the new president of the , said schools needed to be 鈥渨here the children are鈥, and that it was not helpful for any school to 鈥渆xpand beyond its local community鈥. The Surrey director of children鈥檚 services also warned many councils would not have the capacity with current resources to deliver the extra responsibilities set out in the government鈥檚 schools bill. The draft legislation will place a duty on all schools and councils to co-operate on admissions. It will also hand the schools adjudicator powers to set school intake numbers, including for academies, where an objection to a school鈥檚 arrangements is upheld. This has prompted warnings that councils could block the expansion of popular academies 鈥 or even force them to cut their admissions numbers. But in an interview with Schools Week, Wardell said DCSs 鈥渉ave a really mature interest in a thriving sector in our local authority footprint.聽 鈥淲e’re not interested in making life difficult for academies just for the sake of it,鈥 she said. Schools need to be 鈥榳here the children are鈥 But she said schools needed to be 鈥渨here the children are. So it’s not helpful to have one particular school of any type expand beyond its local community in a way that causes lots of children to seek to travel. 鈥淚t’s better to invest resource and attention in improving the school where it is to serve the community that it’s based in.鈥 The schools bill also gives local authorities sweeping new responsibilities. For example, they will need to maintain registers of children not in school, and even check if their home learning environments are suitable. Do councils have the capacity to take on those extra roles? 鈥淧robably, in a lot of cases, no, not yet. One of the things that we’ve seen is a significant reduction in the funding to local authorities for this kind of support infrastructure.鈥 A Schools Week investigation last year found that cash-strapped councils鈥 spending on support for home-educated pupils has soared by 73 per cent in six years, but some local authorities have no dedicated staff dealing with the issue at all. Wardell said some councils 鈥渕ay have had a better funding foundation locally, and been able to maintain some of these teams. 鈥淏ut for a lot of local authorities, it’s really shrunk. And so part of our ongoing dialogue with government is going to be about, if you want us to do these things, then we’re going to need to be resourced accordingly.鈥 Government must take responsibility for SEND deficits One big 鈥渟hared area of concern鈥 for all directors of children鈥檚 services is around SEND provision. The National Audit Office has warned that local authorities鈥 cumulative deficit could be up to 拢4.9 billion by next year, when a statutory override keeping the deficits off council balance sheets is due to come to an end. The ADCS has called for the deficits to be 鈥渞eturned to the national balance sheet鈥or central government to decide what to do with it鈥, said Wardell, who blames underfunding of the 2014 SEND reforms for the deficits. SEND in crisis: NAO鈥檚 8 damning findings 鈥淚t is a piece of national underfunding. The provisions of the [children and families act] should have been funded through the dedicated schools grant sufficiently, and they weren’t. 鈥淪o the debt is landed on council balance sheets, but it doesn’t need to be there.鈥 Won鈥檛 councils without deficits feel a write-off is unfair on them? Wardell points out there are 鈥渇ewer and fewer councils with every passing year which don’t have SEND deficits鈥. 鈥淚 think that we need to pay attention on the impact across all of the councils, rather than that very small minority that still has their heads above water at this stage.鈥 But she added that 鈥渟o many of the decisions are not in the hands of local authorities themselves. 鈥淭hey’re directed by tribunals, and so it is absolutely not a debt that comes about through the mismanagement of local authority decision making. In many cases, we have turned down particular provision or decided not to assess and that is overturned at tribunal. 鈥淪o essentially, our hands are tied, and that is very much central government’s doing, because it’s the legislation, the legislative basis for those tribunal decisions. So I don’t think the argument [of unfairness] stands up very well.鈥 鈥楾he system pits us all against each other鈥 She called for wide-ranging SEND reform, warning 鈥渨e can’t continue to have a system that leads to worse outcomes for children. 鈥淚 think what we’d like to see is a wholesale review of what’s expected and what we are liking at the moment is hearing that focus on inclusive mainstream practice.鈥 Wardell also warned the 鈥渨ay the system is currently designed pits us all against each other. 鈥淪chools against parents and against councils, parents against schools and against councils. Councils against parents and against schools. None of that is healthy.鈥 Parents 鈥渙bviously want to see their children thrive鈥 and 鈥渂elieve with their whole hearts that their child will do better in a specialist setting. But that 鈥渙ften means that their child will be further away, will have to travel further and may well be in a school which is better for their temperament but doesn’t necessarily match their cognitive abilities. 鈥淪o there will be some children whose education is suffering as a result, even while it might be good for their wellbeing.鈥 She also warned that councils 鈥渁re often directed鈥 through the tribunal system to fund 鈥減ackages to support children who are being educated other than at school that exceed the cost of a school place, even in the non-maintained independent sector. 鈥淨uite extraordinary, and again, very questionable as to whether it’s offering the kind of suitable education that is envisaged under the legislation.鈥 鈥楽ome important principles鈥 in Ofsted reforms Wardell is a former senior manager at Ofsted, and believes changes coming to inspection will affect schools and children鈥檚 services 鈥減robably for the better overall鈥. Ofsted is under growing pressure to rethink its proposed approach. But Wardell believes they should not go 鈥渁ll the way back to the drawing board. 鈥淚 think there are some really important principles that they should hold on to.鈥 She says one such principle is the need to be 鈥渞eally clear about how well a school serves the community it’s in, rather than the community that it self-selects. 鈥淚 think stepping away from single-word or two-word judgments into something that provides richer information for parents鈥here may be nuance around that, there may be things that need to be tweaked around that, but I think those important principles ought to stay absolutely.鈥