Question to the Department for Education:

To ask the Secretary of State for Education, whether his Department has made an impact assessment of its plans to discontinue funding for specialist speech, language and communication support.

Specialist speech, language and communication support is not funded directly by the Department for Education. It is commissioned locally, for example by local authorities using their high needs funding budgets, and also via clinical commissioning groups.

The department’s current one-year contract with I CAN, on behalf of The Communication Trust (TCT) is due to end, as planned, at the end of March 2018. The contract was to develop sustainable resources and programmes to support the education workforce to develop their skills in supporting children and young people with speech, language and communication needs. We are in discussion with TCT about how best to ensure that all practitioners are able to make continued use of the wealth of materials, resources and training developed through this contract.