Question to the Department for Education:

To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what recent steps he has taken to progress implementation of the Government's national strategy for autistic children, young people and adults: 2021 to 2026; and what assessment he has made of the adequacy of funding available specifically for girls and women diagnosed with autism spectrum disorder in (a) educational settings and (b) care homes.

The government is committed to addressing the inequalities experienced by autistic people of all ages. Within the new autism strategy, published in July 2021 and extended to children and young people for the first time, we set out how we will continue our programme of developing training and resources for education staff and will consider the issue of identification and support for autistic girls within this. We know that more needs to be done to improve autism identification for girls. That is why, as part of the wider work on improving diagnostic pathways, NHS England/Improvement is looking at ways to improve the quality of diagnosis for girls.

We also want the public to understand how autism can affect people differently, including the difference in how autistic women and girls present, and to help change people’s behaviour towards autistic people and their families.

In the strategy’s first year alone, we are investing £74 million to promote a straightforward route to diagnosis, the correct support, increasing understanding and improving access to a quality education and social care. Work is currently underway to deliver on the actions for the first year, set out in our implementation plan (2021- 2022). We are also in the process of putting in place a new governance structure to ensure there is accountability for delivery of the actions in the autism strategy, which we are aiming to establish in the new year.

£600,000 of this funding has gone towards the department’s contract with the Autism Education Trust (AET) for 2021/22, to deliver autism awareness training to education staff in early years, schools and further education settings. This contract has been provided annually since 2011, and has so far reached more than 305,000 people across the country.

Through this contract with the AET, the department has funded the development of Good Autism Practice Guidance for education settings. This includes a focus on attending to the strengths, needs and challenges of autistic girls.

The department has also provided £2 million of funding for the Whole School SEND consortium in 2021/22, through our contract with Nasen. This will continue their wider programme of work to equip the workforce to deliver high quality teaching for all children and young people with SEND, including autism and attention deficit hyperactivity disorder, this year.

Local authorities have a statutory duty to ensure there are sufficient places to meet the needs of children in their care, including autistic children who need to be cared for in a children’s home. Local authorities set their own children’s services budget from their core spending power, based on local need and priorities. This year, 2021-22, councils have access to £51.3 billion core spending power for their services, including a £1.7 billion grant for social care.

My right hon. Friend, the Chancellor of the Exchequer, announced at Spending Review 2021 that the government will provide local authorities with £4.8 billion of new grant funding over the next Spending Review period, which is intended to help meet the costs of delivering care for our most vulnerable children.