Question to the Department for Education:

To ask the Secretary of State for Education, with reference to the funding of academy chain branches in Ipswich receiving comparatively less than the equivalent branch in London Tower Hamlets, what assessment he has made of the potential effect of regional disparities in funding for the provision of education for SEND students on the resource availability for those students in Suffolk.

There are three key reasons why per pupil school funding rates are different in Tower Hamlets and Suffolk.

The first reason is historical. The national funding formula (NFF) replaced a system which was unfair, untransparent, and out of date, where similar schools and local areas received very different levels of funding with little or no justification. The NFF is improving fairness, so that funding is more closely matched to current needs, rather than historic differences. However, in this move to greater fairness it is also important to maintain stability for schools. The NFF ensures that all schools receive a minimum per-pupil increase in their pupil-led funding, while providing the greatest gains for areas which have been relatively lower funded historically. We believe this strikes the right balance between fairness and stability.

Secondly, it is right that schools with high numbers of pupils with additional needs – such as those indicated by measures of deprivation, low prior attainment, or English as an additional language – receive extra funding to help them meet the needs of all their pupils. The proportion of pupils eligible for free school meals, for example, is higher in Tower Hamlets than in Suffolk, and the funding system reflects this. In addition, schools in more expensive areas, such as London, attract higher funding per pupil than other parts of the country to reflect the higher costs they face.

Thirdly, the current funding system allows for local variation in how funding allocations are determined for individual schools. Local authorities are responsible for designing a local funding formula, within certain parameters, to determine final budgets for schools in their area. This means that there continues to be significant differences in the way in which some local authorities allocate funding. The government has recently put forward its proposals to complete its reforms to the school’s, which will determine schools’ budgets directly rather than through local formulae set independently by each local authority. This will level up the school funding system so that all schools across the country are funded on a fair, consistent basis.

We are also aware that some local authorities have found it difficult to meet the increasing costs of provision for children and young people with education, health and care plans. The right response to tackling this is a multi-faceted approach which looks to the heart of the issues: significant increases in high needs funding nationally; targeted intervention for the local authorities which have struggled the most; and reform from the cross government special education needs and disabilities (SEND) review.

We announced in summer 2021 that high needs funding will increase by £780 million, or 9.6%, in 2022-23 compared to 2021-22; this follows the increase of more than £1.5 billion over the previous two years. This will bring the total high needs budget to £8.9 billion, an increase of over a third since 2019-20. Suffolk County Council’s provisional high needs allocation for 2022-23 is £92.5 million, an increase of 8.1% per head of population aged 2-18 years, compared to 2021-22.

In addition, the autumn 2021 Spending Review will deliver an additional £4.7 billion for the core schools’ budget by 2024-25, compared to previous plans. That includes an additional £1.6 billion for schools and high needs in 2022-23, on top of the funding we previously announced. We will confirm in due course how this additional funding for 2022-23, and for the two subsequent years, will be allocated for schools and high needs.