Question to the Department for Education:

To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what assessment her Department has made of (a) the (i) quality and (ii) accessibility of special educational needs support services in Buckinghamshire, and (b) the adequacy of funding received by Buckinghamshire council for SEND services.

The department is continuing to support and challenge Buckinghamshire to improve its delivery of special educational needs and disabilities (SEND) services.

The last local area SEND inspection by Ofsted and the Care Quality Commission (CQC) for Buckinghamshire was in March 2022, during which inspectors identified three areas of significant weakness. These areas were:

i) The lack of a cohesive area strategy to identify and meet the needs of those children and young people requiring speech and language, communication and occupational therapy.

ii) Waiting times for assessments on the autism spectrum disorder and attention deficit hyperactivity disorder diagnosis pathways, and the system-owned plans in place to address this.

iii) Waiting times to see a community paediatrician.

Following the inspection, Buckinghamshire produced a Written Statement of Action (WSoA) to address these areas of weakness, which was accepted by Ofsted and CQC. The department’s regional team has put in place systems to track outcomes against these areas of weakness and the progress made by children and young people with SEND, including regular review meetings. At the most recent WSoA review meeting in July 2024, the local area demonstrated progress against the range of actions in place to secure clear and sustained improvement across all the areas of significant weakness. Buckinghamshire is also taking part in the Delivering Better Value (DBV) in SEND Programme.

Nationally, the government is providing schools with extra funding of almost £1.1 billion in this 2024/25 financial year through the new Core Schools Budget Grant (CSBG) to support them with overall costs, including the costs of supporting their pupils SEND. Of this total, special schools and alternative provision settings will be receiving over £140 million through the CSBG.

The additional funding through the CSBG comes alongside high needs funding for services and support for children and young people with complex SEND. Buckinghamshire County Council is receiving a high needs funding allocation of £127.5 million through their 2024/25 dedicated schools grant. Decisions on future funding levels beyond this financial year will be for the forthcoming Spending Review.