Question to the Department for Education:

To ask the Secretary of State for Education, how the £1.6 billion Inclusive Mainstream Fund will be allocated between (a) early years settings, (b) primary schools, (c) secondary schools and (d) post-16 institutions; and what accountability mechanisms will apply to that funding.

We will publish methodology documents to explain the funding distribution of the Inclusive Mainstream Fund for early years settings, schools and 16-19 institutions in the spring.

In our recent publication 'SEND reform: putting children and young people first', we explained we will hold settings and trusts to account on how they take meaningful steps to invest in inclusion. More details can be found here: https://www.gov.uk/government/consultations/send-reform-putting-children-and-young-people-first.

Schools will be required to explain their plans to use their overall funding allocation to embed inclusive practice through a published Inclusion Strategy. 16-19 institutions will be required to demonstrate how they will use their inclusion funding in their Accountability Agreements. In early years settings, local authorities will play a role in ensuring providers use their inclusion funding to support inclusive practice. We will provide further detail on these arrangements in the spring.