January 2026 forum meeting
Monday 26th January 2026, 6.30 - 8.30pm, online
All SEND Power members are invited to our forum meetings, which usually take place every 6 - 8 weeks.
We had three guest speakers:
- Karen Flanagan, Haringey's Head of SEND Service, who presented on the SEND and Alternative Provision (AP) Strategy consultation.
- Ginny Thorne and Andrew Ratcliffe, from Haringey's Commissioning Team, who talked about Haringey's SEND commissioning priorities and Safety Valve.
Safety Valve Update
The Safety Valve programme is a national initiative which provides additional government funding to support boroughs like Haringey, who are overspent on their SEND budget, in return for efficiency savings.
Ginny Thorne and Andrew Ratcliffe from Haringey’s SEND Commissioning and Safety Valve teams came along to our most recent forum meeting, to tell members about the Safety Valve Capital Development programme.
In Haringey, one part of this programme has focused on developing more local specialist school places. This should mean that more children can go to school locally in state funded schools, rather than having to travel to independent schools far away from home to have their needs met.
Three provisions have already been built and opened: a specialist autism provision at Earlsmead primary school, an extra classroom at The Brook primary special school and extra classrooms at Riverside secondary special school.
Andrew and Ginny spoke about the next phase of the project which includes three more resource bases, building a brand new special school on the site of the old Tiverton primary school, and an expansion of tuition provision for children who are unable to attend school because of medical reasons or SEND.
More information about Safety Valve can be found here: https://haringey.gov.uk/children-young-people-families/send-local-offer/send-improvement/safety-valve-programme
If you have views about the developments, or any other Safety Valve issues, please email us here: hello@sendpowerinharingey.org
