Question to the Department for Education:

To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what steps her Department is taking to ensure that local authorities operate a clear system for accessing high needs top up funding, in the context of her Department's High Needs operational guidance.

Local authorities have flexibility to determine how to allocate high needs funding, including top up funding, in line with their statutory duties under the Children and Families Act 2014. In doing so, they must take account of the costs that would reasonably be expected to be met from a maintained school’s core budget or an academy’s general annual grant.

The department’s operational guidance advises local authorities on ways in which they can administer high needs top-up funding transparently, consistently and in accordance with the relevant conditions of grant. The department follows up any evidence of breaches of those grant conditions.

The operation of the high needs funding system is currently under review, with the aim of supporting the reforms that we have set out in the schools white paper.