Question to the Department for Education:

To ask the Secretary of State for Education, pursuant to the Answer of 18 December 2023 to Question 6458 on Special Educational Needs: County Durham, whether she is providing additional resources to Durham County Council to meet demand for Education, Health and Care plans.

County Durham are part of the department's Delivering Better Value (DBV) programme. DBV aims to work with selected authorities to review how services are structured and delivered to achieve better outcomes for children and young people with Special Educational Needs and Disabilities (SEND) in a sustainable way. The DBV programme achieves this by helping each of the participating local areas complete a diagnostic to work out the root causes of their challenges and identify local opportunities to sustainably improve the outcomes and experiences of the children and young people with SEND in their care.

On completion of their diagnostic, Durham created an action plan to address their key local challenges and implement service reforms; based on this the department provided grant funding of £1 million to support the delivery of their plans.

Durham County Council have also been involved with the Targeted Performance Improvement programme which has supported them with embedding Ordinarily Available Provision.

In addition, SEND funding to the Local Authority of County Durham has increased by 35% to £94 million over the past three years.