THE county council is facing a £5.7m overspend on special educational needs partly due to a legislative change, it has been claimed.

Howard Emmet, North Yorkshire County Council’s assistant director of strategic resources, has told members the authority was facing “a very challenging funding position” due to soaring numbers of pupils classed as having high needs and fresh legislative requirements being introduced.

He told members of the authority’s young people scrutiny committee that the council was near the point of having to use funds it had spent on other services to support high needs pupils.

The meeting heard the £44m the authority received to discharge its statutory responsibilities over vulnerable students had remained “broadly constant” for several years.

Mr Emmet said: “To compound our indignation about the lack of sufficient funding, we are also concerned about the funding formula the department uses to allocate funding.

“Fifty per cent of their funding formula is based on historic spend, pre-dating 2014 when the Children and Families Act introduced new legislation with additional statutory obligations on local authorities.

"Twenty per cent of that formula is also linked to deprivation which as a local authority we do not believe is a good indicator of need.

“Because of that the department has put us on something commonly referred to the funding floor.

"What they are saying is that they believe we have too much money, but to avoid us losing too drastically they put a floor on the amount on which we can use.

"That means our cash position has certainly not kept up with demand.”