ALN FUNDING: Plaid and Labour strike £60m deal to revive the budget that fell in July
Schools and colleges across Wales will get an extra £60m this year for children with additional learning needs, after the Welsh Government and Welsh Labour reached the deal that sank the last budget.
The agreement clears the way for the Plaid Cymru government to lay its supplementary budget for 2026-27 before the Senedd today, with a vote on Tuesday 3 November.
Three months ago the same budget was voted down 49 to 44, with Labour’s nine MSs joining Reform UK and the Conservatives against it, after the two parties could not agree how much should go to ALN this year.
Labour had wanted £100m before April. First Minister Rhun ap Iorwerth had offered £40m a year for three years and called it his final proposal. Today’s figure is £60m for this financial year, as part of the wider package first set out in June.
That package, the government said at the time, carried £294m of extra spending, including £145m towards NHS waiting lists, £55m to expand funded childcare and £15m to extend free school meals to more secondary pupils.
What it means for Swansea
How much of the £60m reaches south west Wales is not yet set out. Swansea Council has already made its claim: councillors demanded the city’s share last month of the £322m Wales received on the back of special needs spending in England.
Council leader Rob Stewart put the city’s share of the government’s earlier £150m, three-year offer at £11m, and told councillors the government’s message to vulnerable learners so far had been “absolutely damning”.
The council says more than 6,600 primary pupils in Swansea have additional learning needs, around 1,600 of them needing more than their school can normally provide, and that in parts of the city more than 60 per cent of schools are already in the red.
Labour puts the Wales-wide figure at more than 40,000 children and young people with additional learning needs, rising every year, and says the £60m works out at around £1,500 per pupil.
Education minister Anna Brychan told the Senedd last month that there remained “opportunities” to send the ALN money to councils and schools, after Reform UK’s Gŵyr Abertawe MS Francesca O’Brien asked for it to go straight to councils.
“What can be achieved when parties work together”
Mr ap Iorwerth said the agreement “reflects what can be achieved when parties across the Senedd work together” and would “unlock an extra £60m towards additional learning needs in this financial year”.
He said it also allowed the government “to bring forward a supplementary budget that continues our investment in the NHS, childcare and free school meals”.
Welsh Labour leader Ken Skates, whose group forced the July defeat, said his party had “managed to secure a significant cash injection for schools this year” and that it was “50 per cent more than was on the table” when the government put £40m to Labour last week.
He called it “a welcome first step”, while saying Labour still believed the government “should be setting aside more for ALN in schools”, and promised to “call for more money later this year if another supplementary budget is laid before the Senedd”.
Labour’s statement also claims Plaid Cymru allocated nothing extra for ALN when it first brought the budget forward in the summer. The government’s final offer before the July vote was £40m a year for three years.
The July defeat was the biggest setback of the government’s first months, and the school leaders’ unions NAHT Cymru and ASCL Cymru declared a formal trade dispute over pay and ALN funding in the same week.
With Labour now backing the budget, the government has the votes it lacked in July. The debate is on 3 November.
Related stories from Swansea Bay News
BUDGET DEFEAT: Plaid government’s £294m spending plan voted down 49 to 44: the night the first budget fell, and who voted which way.
ALN FUNDING: ‘Absolutely damning’, Swansea leader rounds on Plaid over the £44m schools never saw: the council’s cross-party demand for its share.
SWANSEA: Francesca O’Brien takes the council’s £13.7m overspend to the Senedd: the minister’s “opportunities” answer on the ALN cash.
WELSH LABOUR: Ken Skates confirmed as leader the morning after his nine MSs sank Plaid’s budget: how Labour’s group lined up in July.
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