Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what steps she will take to ensure the equal availability and delivery of support for disabled children in all post codes.
In the Special Educational Needs and Disabilities and Alternative Provision Improvement Plan, the department set out our mission for more children and young people to have their needs met effectively in mainstream education providers, reducing reliance on Education, Health and Care plans to access support.
We will improve mainstream education through setting standards for early and accurate identification of need, and timely access to support to meet those needs. The standards will include clarifying the types of support that should ordinarily be available in mainstream education providers, who are responsible for securing the support and from which budgets the support is obtained.
This will help families, practitioners and providers understand what support every child or young person should be receiving from early years through to further education, no matter where they live or what their needs are. By the end of 2025, the department will publish a significant proportion of the national standards.