Question to the Department for Education:

To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what assessment her Department has made of the adequacy of funding for SEND provision in (a) Liverpool and (b) England.

This government’s ambition is that all children and young people with special educational needs and disabilities (SEND) or in alternative provision receive the right support to succeed in their education and as they move into adult life.

Following the Autumn Budget 2024, the department is providing an increase of £1 billion for high needs budgets in England in the 2025/26 financial year, bringing total high needs funding for children and young people with complex SEND to £11.9 billion in England. Of that total, Liverpool City Council is being allocated over £103 million through the high needs funding block of the dedicated schools grant (DSG), which is an increase of £10 million on this year’s DSG high needs block, calculated using the high needs national funding formula (NFF). This NFF allocation is an 10% increase per head of their 2 to 18-year-old population, on their equivalent 2024/25 NFF allocation.

In addition to the DSG, local authorities will also receive a separate core schools budget grant (CSBG), and funding in respect of the increase in employers’ National Insurance contributions, in 2025/26. This CSBG continues the separate grants payable this year, which are to help special schools and alternative provision with the costs of teachers’ pay and pension increases, and other staff pay increases. Individual local authorities’ allocations for both grants for 2025/26 will be published in due course.