Question to the Department for Education:

To ask the Secretary of State for Education, if he will publish the criteria his Department used to determine (a) which councils would receive funding from the Dedicated schools grant: very high deficit intervention, announced on 19 March 2021 and (b) the level of (i) funding each would receive and (ii) spending reductions those councils would have to make as part of this.

We recognise that some local authorities have faced particular challenges in recent years in managing spending on pupils with high needs and will not be able to resolve their accumulated Dedicated Schools Grant (DSG) deficits over a reasonable period without more targeted intervention. We have therefore developed a programme for those authorities with the greatest need for intervention to rapidly secure sustainable management of their high needs systems and spending, through a rigorous process of reform, with a firm focus on maintaining and improving the quality of support for children with special educational needs and disability.

In order to make this process manageable, it was necessary to limit discussions during the 2020-21 financial year to a fairly small number of local authorities. The first local authorities we have worked with on this intervention programme were those with the highest percentage DSG deficits at the end of the 2019-20 financial year. We expect to expand the programme to other local authorities during 2021-22 and as necessary in subsequent years, continuing to target those with the most substantial deficits.

The department did not set criteria in advance for the content of the agreements with local authorities. Following detailed discussions with the department, the local authorities wrote proposals aimed at securing the sustainability of their high needs systems and spending, and controlling their deficits, through rigorous reform. Those proposals included requests of the department for financial support to eliminate their historic deficits over time. The proposals formed the basis of the agreements with each local authority and are therefore specific to their individual circumstances. As set out in the agreements, funding will be paid over several financial years, and will be subject to delivery of the reforms and deficit reduction targets proposed by the local authorities involved.