Question to the Department for Education:

To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what steps she is taking to help ensure local authorities have sufficient resources to deliver specialist education services for (a) children and (b) young people with visual impairment.

Specialist education services and provision for children and young people with Special Educational Needs and Disabilities (SEND), including those with visual impairment, is funded from local authorities’ high needs budgets. High needs funding will increase to over £10.5 billion in 2024/25 which is an increase of over 60% from the 2019/20 allocations.

In December 2023 the department announced local authorities’ allocations of high needs funding through their 2024/25 dedicated schools grant. Stockport Council is due to receive an allocation of over £48 million, which is a cumulative increase of 28% per head through the national funding formula over the three years from 2021/22. This funding will help with the costs of delivering specialist education services for children and young people with visual impairment.

To support pupils with visual impairments in school, the department is reforming the system to support all children with SEND, which includes improved support in mainstream schools and securing the supply of specialist teachers trained in sensory impairment.