Question to the Department for Education:

To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what assessment she made of whether there were adequate exceptional circumstances as a mitigating measure for the removal of spelling and grammar software from Disabled Students’ Allowances.

The department engaged with disability experts who support disabled students to gather feedback on the removal of non-specialist spelling and grammar software from Disabled Students’ Allowance (DSA) funding, in advance of a decision being taken. The decision followed a detailed review which found that free-to-access versions now offer the required spelling and grammar support functionality to meet students’ disability-related needs.

DSA will continue to fund spelling and grammar software in exceptional circumstances where there is a specific disability-related need that cannot be met by the functionality and software already available to a student, to ensure that a student in this position will still be able to access the required software through DSA funding. The equality impact assessment is attached to this response.