Question to the Department for Education:

To ask Her Majesty's Government what assessment they have made of any estimated overspend of council funding special needs education; and what steps they are taking to provide financial support to protect the service.

We have asked local authorities with a cumulative deficit on their Dedicated Schools Grant of more than 1% to submit recovery plans to the department. We are now reviewing those plans and will be discussing these with local authorities in due course.

For 2020-21, we have announced more than £700 million of additional high needs funding, which funds children with more complex special educational needs. This represents an increase of 11% compared to 2019-20, leading to a total of over £7 billion. Every local authority will receive a minimum increase of 8% per head of population aged 2-18. We will provide local authorities with provisional allocations in October. This will help local authorities to manage the pressures that they will face next year.