Question to the Department for Education:

To ask the Secretary of State for Education, how many and what proportion of pupils at (a) primary, (b) secondary pre-16 and (c) post-16 independent schools (i) have an Education Health and Care plan and have their school fees paid for in full by their local authority, (ii) have an Education Health and Care plan and do not have their school fees paid for in full by their local authority and (iii) have special educational needs but do not have an Education Health and Care plan, broken down by local authority.

Where a local authority names an independent school on a child or young person’s Education, Health and Care (EHC) plan, the local authority must secure a place and must pay fees where applicable. However, if a child’s parents wish to make a private fee-paying placement which has not been named following the EHC assessment process, the local authority may be relieved of its duty to secure the special educational provision, if it is satisfied that the parents have made ‘suitable alternative arrangements’.

The department publishes statistics on EHC plans, including the establishment children and young people attend. These can be accessed at: https://explore-education-statistics.service.gov.uk/find-statistics/education-health-and-care-plans.

As at January 2024, local authorities named an independent special school for 25,620 EHC plans and an independent mainstream school for 6,768 EHC plans. Local authorities maintained 916 EHC plans where parents had made alternative arrangements, which includes where parents have chosen to arrange and pay for an independent school placement. Numbers and percentages by local authority are available here: https://explore-education-statistics.service.gov.uk/data-tables/permalink/67bb4b0f-de93-4558-b7f4-08dcab23a860.

This information is provided at individual level by local authorities in the SEN2 collection.

Phase of independent schools data is not collected. Therefore, the age group of the child and young person has been provided as a proxy in the attached table. However, please note that this does not necessarily translate to state-funded sector primary, secondary and post-16 schools.

The department also publishes statistics on special educational needs (SEN) provision for children in schools. More information can be found here: https://explore-education-statistics.service.gov.uk/find-statistics/special-educational-needs-in-england.

This publication includes children in independent schools recorded as having special educational needs who do not have an EHC plan, and is available at local authority level here: https://explore-education-statistics.service.gov.uk/data-tables/permalink/de7807ad-ea91-4e25-b8aa-08dcab23db45.

This information is provided by independent schools in the School Level Annual School Census and does not include school phase or an age breakdown of SEN.