Special Educational Needs: Health Services and Social Services

(asked on 16th October 2023) - View Source

Question to the Department for Education:

To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what assessment she has made of the adequacy of the availability of out of school provision of specialist support for children with special educational needs and disabilities.


Answered by
David Johnston Portrait
David Johnston
Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Education)
This question was answered on 24th October 2023

Where children and young people have EHC Plans which specify the provision of services or support outside of term time, the local authority or the relevant health commissioner will be required to secure the provision. Additionally, through the Children and Families Act 2014, the department requires local authorities to work with schools and other partners to publish a ‘Special Educational Needs and Disability (SEND) Local Offer’ outlining the support and services they expect to be available to children and young people in their area who have SEND, including those who do not have EHC Plans.

This year, the government is again investing over £200 million in our Holiday Activities and Food (HAF) programme, with all local authorities in England delivering in the Easter, Summer, and Christmas holidays. The department provides guidance to local authorities on designing provision for children with SEND and they must include the numbers of children with SEND or additional needs who have participated in their programme in their post-provision reporting to us. We encourage local authorities to use their own discretion and use up to 15% of their funding to provide free or subsidised holiday club places for children who are not in receipt of benefits-related Free School Meals, but who the local authority believe could benefit from the HAF provision.

All local authorities have a duty to provide a range of short breaks for carers of disabled children, and must publish a statement about short breaks services in their area. In 2022, the department launched the Short Breaks Innovation Fund, a £30 million fund to test novel approaches to short breaks.

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