Special Educational Needs: Finance

(asked on 16th September 2020) - View Source

Question to the Department for Education:

To ask the Secretary of State for Education, whether the additional funding allocated to primary and secondary aged pupils also applies to special and alternative provision providers.


Answered by
Vicky Ford Portrait
Vicky Ford
This question was answered on 21st September 2020

Special and alternative provision providers are funded through the high needs block of the Dedicated Schools Grant. We will provide an additional £730 million of high needs funding next year, coming on top of the additional £780 million in 2020-21, which means high needs budgets will have grown by over £1.5 billion, or 24%, in just 2 years.

We have also announced an additional package worth £1 billion to ensure that schools have the resources they need to help all pupils make up for lost teaching time, with extra support for those who need it most. £650 million will be spent on ensuring all pupils have the chance to catch up and supporting schools to rise to the challenge. This funding will be paid as a one-off grant to all state-funded primary, secondary and special schools in the 2020-21 academic year. Mainstream schools will receive £80 per place, while each special, alternative provision and hospital school will receive £240 for each place, across the 2020-21 academic year. We have applied this additional weighting to specialist settings in recognition of the significantly higher per-pupil costs they face. Further information can be found at: https://www.gov.uk/guidance/coronavirus-covid-19-catch-up-premium.

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