Special Educational Needs: Finance
(asked on 6th December 2023) - View Source
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, whether her Department has issued guidance for local authorities on the inclusion of personal budgets in education, health and care plans.
When a local authority draws up or reviews an Education, Health and Care (EHC) Plan, the child’s parents, or the young person from age 16, can request a personal budget. Local authorities must include information on personal budgets as part of their published Special Educational Needs and Disabilities (SEND) local offer.
Statutory guidance for local authorities on personal budgets is included in the 0 to 25 years SEND Code of Practice. This can be accessed at: https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/send-code-of-practice-0-to-25.
The number and proportion of EHC Plans that included personal budgets in each of the last five years are as follows:
| 2019 | 2020 | 2021 | 2022 | 2023 |
Number of personal budgets | 15,712 | 20,346 | 22,233 | 25,259 | 18,887 |
Number of EHC plans | 353,995 | 390,109 | 430,697 | 473,255 | 517,049 |
Proportion of EHC plans including a personal budget | 4.4% | 5.2% | 5.2% | 5.3% | 3.7% |