Question to the Department for Education:

To ask the Secretary of State for Education, whether the new funding formula for schools includes funding for students with high needs; and if she will make a statement.

On 14 September, we published our decisions on the introduction of a national funding formula for schools (which provides core funding for all mainstream schools), and a national funding formula for high needs (which provides place funding for special schools, and top-up funding for high needs pupils in both special and mainstream schools).

Under the national funding formulae, mainstream schools will be expected to contribute the first £6,000 of additional funding for any pupil on their roll with high needs from their schools block funding. When a school can demonstrate that the costs of additional support required for a pupil with high needs exceed £6,000, the local authority should allocate additional top-up funding from their high needs budget to cover the excess costs. This process is the same as under the previous funding system. This is explained in paragraph 54 of the High Needs funding 2018 to 2019 operational guide, which can be found at https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/high-needs-funding-arrangements-2018-to-2019. If a school has concerns about the level of funding they receive for their pupils with high needs, it should discuss it with their local authority in the first instance.