Question to the Department for Education:

To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what steps her Department is taking to help schools with a high number of Special Educational Needs (SEN) pupils meet the first £6,000 of SEN funding.

Local authorities have the responsibility to make sure that the schools in their area are given enough funding to meet the needs of all their pupils, including the additional support required by those with special educational needs (SEN). Local authorities design their local school funding formula to give extra money to schools likely to have more children with SEN. Authorities also have flexibility to give even more funding to schools with a relatively high proportion of such children, and to give top-up funding for individual pupils whose additional support costs more than £6,000 per year.