YORK'S continuing inability to provide residential placements for special needs children comes at a high price.

The city council is paying £2 million a year to place 31 youngsters in homes outside the city. That works out at an average of nearly £63,000 per pupil - about £60,000 more than the cost of a year's standard secondary schooling.

These fees have caused a £700,000 overspend, bad enough at any time, but a particular cause of concern when the council faces a cash crisis.

But the hidden cost is dearer still. Parents who have to send their children away are suffering incalculable heartache and guilt.

York mum Mandy Brunskill and her family can no longer cope with 12-year-old Liam's increasingly erratic behaviour, the result of his severe autism. They have managed to give Liam a full home life despite his often aggressive outbursts caused by his condition. He has also benefited from being taught at Lidgett Grove School.

But now he is becoming too strong, and a danger to himself and others.

After a long struggle, Mandy secured city council funding for a residential place for Liam - at a school in Doncaster. Mandy will not see her son for weeks at a time. The situation, she says, is "heartbreaking".

York council is working to improve its special needs provision. This year it is overseeing a major shake-up, replacing four special schools with two new ones. Education experts are sure this will vastly improve the teaching of these youngsters.

The next step must be to provide more residential places within York so children such as Liam no longer have to be uprooted from their families, at such a high emotional and financial cost.

Updated: 10:15 Tuesday, August 03, 2004