Question to the Department for Education:

To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what steps he is taking to help ensure that college students with special educational needs or disabilities but without high needs funding receive the same level of support that they received when at school.

In 2014, the Children and Families Act introduced significant reforms to the system for special educational needs and disability (SEND). It brought the further education (FE) sector into a single coherent SEND system spanning early years, schools and FE, and placed new duties on FE colleges and other post-16 providers, who must have regard to the SEND Code of Practice. Colleges are required to identify and address the special educational needs of the learners they work with and must make sure that the young person gets the support they need.

​The SEND Code of Practice states that colleges should be ambitious for all young people with SEND, whatever their needs and whatever their level of study.

The national funding formula for 16–19 year-olds includes disadvantage funding to attract, retain and support disadvantaged students, including those with learning difficulties and disabilities. In the 2020/21 academic year we allocated over £530 million of disadvantage funding within 16-19 funding formula.

Through the grant which we have in place with the Education and Training Foundation (£1.2 million in the 2021-22 financial year) we fund training and support for the college workforce to equip them to offer high quality provision for learners with SEND, throughout their time in college.

We are currently conducting a review of SEND policy, which includes looking at how we can provide the highest quality support across school and colleges, ensuring that children and young people with SEND are enabled to thrive, prepare for adulthood and secure high quality outcomes.