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Dan Bates: the wider impact of DSG deficit balances

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Dedicated Schools Grant (DSG) deficits are often reported as being ‘off balance sheet’. This is not the case; they might be harder to find, tucked away in unusable reserves, but they are very much there and add up to the biggest risk to local government financial resilience.

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The statutory override, extended to March 2027, temporarily protects usable revenue reserves from the impact of special educational needs and disabilities (SEND) overspends but

Clackmannanshire Council has been warned to urgently address pressures in its finance team which have seen the authority fail to meet its accounts deadline for the last five years, posing a “significant risk” to its financial governance.

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