Question to the Department for Education:

To ask the Secretary of State for Education, how many special school places are available in England as of 24 January 2024, broken down by local education authority.

The information requested is not held centrally. The department does not collect real-time data on the availability of school places.

The department has begun collecting annual data from local authorities on available capacity in special schools, Special Educational Needs and Disabilities (SEND) units and resourced provision, along with corresponding forecasts of demand for these places. This data will help the department to effectively support local authorities to fulfil their statutory duty to provide sufficient specialist places.

Local authorities are responsible for providing enough school places for children in their area.

The department supports local authorities to provide sufficient school places through capital funding, and the department has published over £1.5 billion of High Needs Provision Capital Allocations for the 2022/23 and 2023/24 financial years. This funding is allocated to local authorities to support them to deliver new places and improve existing provision for children and young people with SEND or who require Alternative Provision (AP). This funding forms part of the department’s transformational investment of £2.6 billion in new high needs provision between 2022 and 2025 and is on top of the department’s ongoing delivery of new special and AP free schools.