Question to the Department for Education:

To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what steps she is taking to ensure regional funding equality in the provision of education for children who are in hospital and requiring statutory entitlement to education.

We have been consulting on a national funding formula for high needs, to be implemented in 2018-19. As part of consultation, we have confirmed that for the time being we will continue to distribute funding for the education of children in hospital on the basis of local authorities’ current spending. These amounts are included in the high needs block of the dedicated schools grant that local authorities receive from the Education Funding Agency.

We are exploring with representatives from hospital schools and others how to devise a fairer distribution of funding for hospital education in future. In the meantime, we will continue to make any funding adjustments needed from year to year to reflect recent or forthcoming changes in hospital provision for children. The Education Funding Agency is currently finalising the hospital education adjustments that will be included in local authorities’ dedicated schools grant allocations for 2017-18.