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, what data her Department holds on the number and proportion of education, health and care plans that included personal budgets in each of the last five years.


Answered by
David Johnston Portrait
David Johnston
This question was answered on 15th December 2023

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%

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