CASH could be taken from mainstream school budgets to support pupils with special needs, despite widespread opposition.

Oxfordshire County Council wants to defy disapproval from schools across the county and transfer up to £1.8m from other areas of its school budget to its ‘high needs’ block, which is used to educate children and young people with special needs and disabilities (SEND).

Oxfordshire Schools' Forum, which represents headteachers and governors, is responsible for deciding on school funding transfers and denied the proposal.

The council is now seeking the education secretary's approval to override the forum's decision and move the cash anyway.

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Minutes from the Schools' Forum's November meeting, published ahead of a subsequent meeting yesterday, said: "Schools were not, overall, supportive of the transfer of any funds from the schools block to high needs block.

"Members detailed individual experiences and concerns that while schools have been proactive in getting best use of available funds, it is felt that the [council] has not been as proactive or timely as it might have been in reducing high needs spending."

Councils are given a government education grant split into blocks: early years, schools, central school services and 'high needs', and can transfer up to 0.5 per cent from their core schools block to another.

Oxfordshire schools were consulted on the transfer proposal and a council report last week revealed 91 per cent of respondents did not support the idea.

The council has previously said its budget for special needs (SEND) education is under 'extreme pressure', predicting an £8m overspend this year alone.

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Oxfordshire School's Forum stressed how schools in the county are still struggling to balance budgets as costs rise.

Minutes of the meeting stated: "Schools are of the strong opinion that the [new] National Funding Formula has not delivered what schools in our authority campaigned for.

"It has produced only a small total increase across the county and appears to have been motivated to minimise turbulence at a time of reducing funding, rather than addressing the actual amount of funding required to run schools."

In December the education secretary announced an additional £250m of high needs funding for councils, which will be distributed in 2018/19 and 2019/20.

Oxfordshire County Council has since learnt that it will get a £1.5m from this pot, but it still wants to transfer the additional £1.8m to help meet the shortfall.

If a schools forum disagrees with a council's transfer proposal, the Department for Education will have the final say.

The Schools' Forum minutes said the group understood the council's need to appeal, to 'ensure that the severity of underfunding of the high needs block is understood'.

Oxfordshire County Council said it has not yet heard back from the DfE about its appeal.