Question to the Department for Education:

To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what recent assessment her Department has made of regional variation in access to special educational needs and disabilities support, and what steps she is taking to ensure a consistent level of support for children and young people with SEND.

The department assesses local authorities’ performance in delivering their responsibilities on special educational needs and disabilities (SEND) and their progress in taking forward local SEND reform plans. This includes considering evidence from local authority performance, Area SEND inspections and wider engagement with local areas to identify strengths, challenges and variation in local SEND systems. Where failure is persistent, the department will consider using its full range of intervention powers, including issuing improvement notices and statutory directions. The full list of local authorities currently subject to those interventions due to SEND performance, along with local authorities subject to intervention relating to children’s social care, is published at: https://www.gov.uk/government/collections/improvement-notices.

The National Inclusion Standards will provide the foundation for a more consistent, needs-led system by setting out what ordinarily available provision should be in every setting across the 0 to 25 system, as well as the evidence-based tools, strategies and approaches for educators to draw on to identify and support children and young people with SEND.