Question to the Department for Education:

To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what steps he is taking to ensure children in Dudley who require Speech and Language Therapy receive the support they need in schools.

Supporting the most vulnerable children and young people, including those with speech, language and communication needs (SLCN), is a priority for us, especially at this time. Throughout the COVID-19 outbreak, educational settings have been asked to ensure that vulnerable children and young people can attend where appropriate.

Through our contract with nasen, we have funded the Whole School SEND consortium to produce information for families and resources for schools, including training to support teachers to respond to the COVID-19 outbreak. A range of resources to equip the workforce to deliver high-quality teaching for all types of SEND, including SLCN, can be found at https://www.sendgateway.org.uk/resources. A number of speech and language organisations are members of the Whole School SEND Consortium, including I CAN, Afasic and The Communication Trust.

Speech and language therapists working with children are employed by local authorities, the health service or directly by schools in response to children’s and young people’s needs in each area, rather than being employed or funded centrally by the department. For this reason, the department does not map services centrally.

Individual local authorities are responsible for their own strategic planning and have statutory requirements to offer SLCN provision where a child or young person requires it as part of their education, health and care plan.

This year we are providing local authorities with £7.2 billion in high needs funding, including an additional £780 million in the 2020-21 financial year.