Nearly £1.2 Million In Council Transfers Raises Fresh Questions Over SEND Funding...

Durham Council is the latest council to have been found to have recieved significant sums from Hartlepool BC

Council Defends SEND Payments After Almost £1.2m Sent To Other Authorities...

3rd May 2026

A further investigation into Hartlepool Borough Council’s spending records has found that, in addition to the near £800,000 payment made to Gateshead Council, the council with no public confidence transferred more than £402,000 to Durham County Council in February 2026.

The latest payment, understood to be a total of £402,160, means that more than £1.19 million pounds worth of public money was transferred by Hartlepool Borough Council to other North East councils across the two payments in just the last recorded financial quarter.

The latest revelation was also discovered in the councils' very own expenditure records.

It follows earlier findings by The Teesside & Durham Post that Hartlepool Borough Council made a payment of £796,703.79 to Gateshead MBC on 31 March 2026, recorded under Children’s Services – Special Needs Services.

The council has now issued a statement online explaining that the Gateshead's payment formed part of a national Department for Education programme known as the SEND and Alternative Provision Change Programme, which is intended to improve support for children and young people with special educational needs and disabilities.

Hartlepool Borough Council said:

“This payment is part of a national programme funded by the Department for Education. It is called the SEND and Alternative Provision (AP) Change Programme. It helps improve support for children and young people with special educational needs and disabilities. Hartlepool is the lead council for this programme in our region. This means we receive funding and, in line with Government criteria for the funding, share it with partner councils, like Gateshead, to deliver services. Payments like this are normal and planned. They are not unusual or extra spending.”

The SEND and Alternative Provision Change Programme is a national government programme set up to test and refine changes to the system supporting children and young people with special educational needs and disabilities and those requiring alternative provision. Government evaluation documents state the programme was launched in September 2023 and is being delivered through regional partnerships of local councils.

However, while the council’s explanation may clarify the technical reason behind the payments, it does not remove the wider public-interest questions around transparency, accountability and how such large sums are recorded and explained to residents.

At a time when councils regularly cite rising children’s services and SEND pressures as one of the reasons behind increasing council tax and budget pressures, payments of this size are always likely to attract scrutiny.

The issue is not necessarily whether the payments were unlawful or outside the rules. If Hartlepool is acting as a lead authority for a regional programme, then it may be expected to receive funding and redistribute it to partner councils in line with government criteria.

But the controversy lies in the fact that ordinary residents looking at council spending records may simply see hundreds of thousands of pounds being transferred from Hartlepool Borough Council to Gateshead or Durham, with limited detail about precisely what that money funds, how it is monitored, and what outcomes are delivered.

The newly identified Durham County Council payment raises further questions about the scale of inter-council transfers linked to SEND and children’s services, with residents asking whether other similar payments have been made, as well as how much total funding has passed through Hartlepool Borough Council as the regional lead, and whether the public can easily distinguish between government grant funding being redistributed and money coming directly from Hartlepool’s own local budget.

If the payments are funded by the Department for Education and passed on to partner councils, then the council will argue they are not additional local spending. But where those payments appear in local council expenditure records, they still involve public money being transferred and should therefore be open to public scrutiny.

The Department for Education programme itself is intended to test reforms to SEND and alternative provision, with participating councils working in regional partnerships. Hartlepool has previously been described as a lead local authority in the North East SEND and AP Change Programme.

For families in Hartlepool, the bigger question may be whether this money is improving services on the ground. Many parents of children with special educational needs have experienced long waits, difficulties accessing support, and frustration with the wider SEND system. That means the council may now face pressure to publish a clearer breakdown of what the Gateshead and Durham payments were for, which partner authorities received funding, what services were delivered, and how the success of the programme is being measured.

The payments currently identified are:

Gateshead Council: £796,703.79

Durham County Council: £402,160

Total identified transfers: £1,198,863.79

Hartlepool Borough Council’s position is that these payments are part of a normal, planned, government-funded programme. But for many residents, the fact remains that almost £1.2 million pounds in public money has been moved between local councils under the banner of SEND and alternative provision.

With council tax bills continuing to rise and children’s services often cited as a major financial pressure, calls are now likely to grow for much greater transparency over regional payments of this kind.