Asked by: John Milne (Liberal Democrat - Horsham)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, pursuant to the Answer of 7 September 2026 to Question 19297, whether her Department has (a) contacted ITV News to obtain the evidence behind the whistleblower allegations broadcast on 3 July 2026 and (b) taken steps to establish whether the practices alleged exist in other local authorities in England.
Answered by Georgia Gould - Minister of State (Education)
ITV did not directly approach officials regarding this, but the media team flagged the issue to policy colleagues at the time. It would not be appropriate for media colleagues to seek further specifics on allegations from the journalist given this was reported as an anonymous case and sources or details beyond those included in the piece would not be shared.
Regarding next steps, the department's special educational needs and disabilities (SEND) Improvement and Intervention programmes target local areas that are not adequately delivering SEND services for children and young people. For local areas with the most acute performance concerns, officials place heightened scrutiny on the extent to which local authorities are doing everything within their control to implement SEND reforms effectively and deliver their statutory SEND duties. This includes a close examination of leadership capability, the pace of action and a clear accountability structure. We are strengthening these oversight mechanisms and plan to publish details on this in coming months. Where necessary to drive improvement, the department will use intervention levers to require rapid action from local authorities.
Asked by: John Milne (Liberal Democrat - Horsham)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what estimate her Department has made of the proportion of student loan borrowers who (a) have and (b) will have paid back more than their original student loan in England.
Answered by Josh MacAlister - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Education)
The department does not hold an estimate of the proportion of student loan borrowers who have repaid more than they originally borrowed in a form that would provide a meaningful answer to the question. Likewise, the department does not hold an estimate of the percentage of loan borrowers who will have paid back more than their original loan in the future.
The amount a borrower ultimately repays depends on factors including their earnings, the amount borrowed, their repayment plan and how long the loan remains outstanding. A borrower who has not yet repaid more than they borrowed may do so in future, while some borrowers will never repay their original loan amount.
Furthermore, comparing total cash repayments with the original amount borrowed does not account for inflation, meaning it does not show whether a borrower has repaid more than they borrowed in real terms.
Asked by: John Milne (Liberal Democrat - Horsham)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what proportion of Plan 2 student loan borrowers in England are projected to repay, in cash terms, more than the principal amount originally borrowed.
Answered by Josh MacAlister - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Education)
The department does not hold analysis of the proportion of borrowers who are projected to repay, in cash terms, more than the principal amount originally borrowed.
As interest is charged on both Plan 1 and Plan 2 loans, including during study, anyone who does repay their loan in full will repay more than they borrowed in cash terms.
The department published a table including proportion of outlay repaid in real terms by the final cohort of Plan 2 borrowers. The table can be found at: https://explore-education-statistics.service.gov.uk/find-statistics/student-loan-forecasts-for-england/2022-23#section-undergraduate-learners-with-higher-education-student-loans-average-repayment-per-student.
This is only a snapshot from one cohort and is in real not cash terms.
Asked by: John Milne (Liberal Democrat - Horsham)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what proportion of Plan 1 student loan borrowers in England are projected to repay, in cash terms, more than the principal amount originally borrowed.
Answered by Josh MacAlister - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Education)
The department does not hold analysis of the proportion of borrowers who are projected to repay, in cash terms, more than the principal amount originally borrowed.
As interest is charged on both Plan 1 and Plan 2 loans, including during study, anyone who does repay their loan in full will repay more than they borrowed in cash terms.
The department published a table including proportion of outlay repaid in real terms by the final cohort of Plan 2 borrowers. The table can be found at: https://explore-education-statistics.service.gov.uk/find-statistics/student-loan-forecasts-for-england/2022-23#section-undergraduate-learners-with-higher-education-student-loans-average-repayment-per-student.
This is only a snapshot from one cohort and is in real not cash terms.
Asked by: John Milne (Liberal Democrat - Horsham)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, whether local authorities will be required to inform schools and families on the range and level of specialist expertise available through their Experts at Hand offer.
Answered by Georgia Gould - Minister of State (Education)
The department is asking local area partnerships, including local authorities and integrated care boards, to work together with settings and families to design and deliver their Experts at Hand offer to meet local needs and circumstances.
As part of delivery, local area partnerships should ensure that mainstream settings understand how to access the support and specialist expertise available through their local offer, including the range of support available and how it can be accessed.
Schools and local area partners should help children, young people and their families understand the support available through their local offer.
Asked by: John Milne (Liberal Democrat - Horsham)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what role specialist schools, specialist health services and established centres of expertise will play to support the development and delivery of the Experts at Hand programme.
Answered by Georgia Gould - Minister of State (Education)
The department is investing around £1.8 billion over the next three years for local area partnerships, including local authorities and Integrated Care Boards, to develop a new Experts at Hand offer.
Specialist schools, specialist health services and other local specialist education and health services will play an important role in the development and delivery of local Experts at Hand offers. Local area partnerships will be able to draw on their expertise to help provide advice, coaching, workforce development and targeted support for mainstream settings. This will include specialist expertise from educational psychologists and trainees, speech and language therapists, support workers or assistants, occupational therapists and specialist teachers, including those based in specialist and alternative provision settings.
Through the offer, these practitioners may provide targeted interventions, support earlier identification of needs and help mainstream staff develop the knowledge, skills and confidence to meet the needs of children and young people more effectively.
Asked by: John Milne (Liberal Democrat - Horsham)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, pursuant to the Answer of 8 September 2026 to Question 22145, how many times in each of the last five years her Department has used its statutory powers to intervene directly in local authority SEND services; and in which local authorities.
Answered by Georgia Gould - Minister of State (Education)
In the last five years, the department has issued 25 Improvement Notices, including revised Improvement Notices, to local authorities to improve special educational needs and disabilities (SEND) services for children and young people.
Improvement Notices were issued to North Somerset (2021), Devon (2022), Kent, Plymouth, Oxfordshire and Oldham (2023), Hertfordshire, Halton, Bexley, Wirral, Suffolk, North Northamptonshire, Bury, West Northamptonshire, Worcestershire and Derbyshire (2024), Lancashire, Wirral (revised), Bracknell Forest, Tameside (initial and revised), Redbridge, Sheffield and Torbay (2025), and Bournemouth, Christchurch and Poole (2026). Five of these Improvement Notices have since closed: Kent, Plymouth, Oxfordshire, Oldham and Hertfordshire.
The department has also issued three Statutory Directions over the same period to Birmingham (2021), Slough and Bournemouth (2023), Christchurch and Poole (2024). The Statutory Direction for Bournemouth, Christchurch and Poole closed in 2026, and an Improvement Notice was issued.
Further information on all open and closed Improvement Notices and Statutory Directions for SEND services can be found at: https://www.gov.uk/government/collections/improvement-notices.
Asked by: John Milne (Liberal Democrat - Horsham)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, how local Experts at Hand partnerships will be supported to draw on specialist expertise beyond their immediate local workforce where this would help meet the needs of an individual child.
Answered by Georgia Gould - Minister of State (Education)
The department is investing around £1.8 billion over the next three years for local area partnerships, including local authorities and Integrated Care Boards, to develop a new Experts at Hand (EaH) offer.
Local area partnerships (LAPs) are responsible for planning and delivering their local EaH offer, taking account of local need, existing services and workforce capacity. The department is asking LAPs to develop a new offer of support for mainstream settings, drawing on specialist expertise across education, health and local services to meet local needs.
LAPs will have flexibility to design and deliver the offer in a way that reflects local needs and existing services, while working towards the expectations set out in the published EaH guidance. They will therefore be able to determine how best to deploy the specialist expertise required to meet the needs of children and young people in their area.
Asked by: John Milne (Liberal Democrat - Horsham)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what assessment has been made of the potential impact of the proposed Disabled Students' Allowance changes on the disability employment commitments in the Get Britain Working White Paper.
Answered by Josh MacAlister - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Education)
A key purpose of the consultation is to understand the extent to which advances in mainstream functionality can appropriately meet disability-related needs and where specialist software continues to be required. The intention is not to remove support where it is needed, but to ensure provision is appropriately targeted. On that basis, the department does not anticipate that the proposed changes will affect the disability employment commitments in the Get Britain Working White Paper.
Asked by: John Milne (Liberal Democrat - Horsham)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, whether her Department plans to map existing specialist expertise in cerebral palsy across education, health and the voluntary sector to help local partnerships identify and access expertise through the Experts at Hand programme.
Answered by Georgia Gould - Minister of State (Education)
The department’s new Experts at Hand offer will support many children with special educational needs and disabilities (SEND), including some children and young people with cerebral palsy attending mainstream settings, by improving access to support and expertise within those settings, while others will receive support through provision specified in their education, health and care plan. Local area partnerships are expected to draw on appropriately qualified and supervised practitioners and existing professional standards within health and education workforces to meet the needs of all children and young people with SEND.
The department is asking local area partnerships to develop a new offer of support for mainstream settings, drawing on specialist expertise across education, health and local services to meet local needs, including where condition-specific expertise is required. The department will continue to monitor data on the growth of the relevant health and education specialist workforces.
To support delivery, the department is investing over £40 million in the specialist workforce, including £26 million to train 204 EPs in 2026 and 239 in 2027, with the remaining £15 million invested to establish new speech and language therapist advanced practitioners in every Integrated Care Board geographical area, to get more Speech and Language Therapists working in educational settings. Alongside this, the department is investing £200 million in SEND and inclusion training to upskill staff in every school, college and nursery. We will continue to monitor implementation as the programme develops.