Question to the Department for Education:

To ask the Secretary of State for Education, how much ringfenced funding is available to local authorities to prevent school absence due to chronic health conditions.

The department does not allocate funding to local authorities that is ringfenced for the purpose of preventing school absence due to chronic health conditions.

Local authorities’ expenditure arising from the authority’s functions under section 19 in chapter III of part I (exceptional provision of education in pupil referral units or elsewhere), and under chapter II of part VI (school attendance), of the Education Act 1996, and their functions under the Children and Families Act 2014 to support the special education of children with health needs, can be funded from their dedicated schools grant allocations.

The majority of absence from autumn to spring term 2022/23 was due to illness, which accounted for 4.5% of possible sessions in autumn term, and 3.6% in spring term. The department does not hold information about the number and proportion of state-educated students whose school absences are recorded as due to a chronic health condition or disability. The most recent school absence data can be found here: https://explore-education-statistics.service.gov.uk/find-statistics/pupil-absence-in-schools-in-england.