Question to the Department for Education:

To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what assessment her Department has made of potential impact of local authority funding for Special Educational Needs and Disabilities provision on outcomes for children with SEND; and whether her Department holds data on children's outcomes across local authorities with differing levels of SEND funding.

Answered by Catherine McKinnell - Minister of State (Education)

The department publishes a High Needs Benchmarking Tool, which offers comparative data on local authorities’ high needs spending and related special educational needs and disabilities (SEND) indicators across local authorities. This tool may assist in understanding variations between local authorities in how they fund SEND provision.

The department also publishes a variety of data on children’s and young people’s outcomes by special educational needs across all local authorities. A summary of these outcomes and their sources can be found here: https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/media/66bdc2de3effd5b79ba490fd/Special_educational_needs_and_disability_analysis_and_summary_of_data_sources_Aug24.pdf.

Question to the Department for Education:

To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what assessment her Department has made of the potential impact of the formula for allocating per-pupil high needs funding on educational outcomes in local authorities that have a deficit in their high needs education budgets.

Answered by Catherine McKinnell - Minister of State (Education)

The operation of the high needs funding system is currently under review. Our aim is to establish a fair education funding system that directs resources to where they are most needed and enables improved support and outcomes for children and young people with special educational needs and disabilities (SEND).

Because it is important that we take the time needed for this review, the structure of the high needs national funding formula is largely unchanged for the 2025/26 financial year allocations to local authorities and we are considering the funding required in future years, following the conclusion of the recent spending review.

We want future funding for SEND to support our plans for reforming the SEND system, which will be set out in further detail in a white paper in the autumn. We will also outline, before the end of this year, how the government intends to support local authorities in managing their historic and accruing high needs deficits.

Question to the Department for Education:

To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what progress her Department has made on reviewing the high needs national funding formula.

Answered by Catherine McKinnell - Minister of State (Education)

The operation of the high needs funding system is currently under review. Our aim is to establish a fair education funding system that directs resources to where they are most needed and enables improved support and outcomes for children and young people with special educational needs and disabilities (SEND).

Because it is important that we take the time needed for this review, the structure of the high needs national funding formula is largely unchanged for the 2025/26 financial year allocations to local authorities and we are considering the funding required in future years, following the conclusion of the recent spending review.

We want future funding for SEND to support our plans for reforming the SEND system, which will be set out in further detail in a white paper in the autumn. We will also outline, before the end of this year, how the government intends to support local authorities in managing their historic and accruing high needs deficits.