Question to the Department for Education:

To ask Her Majesty’s Government whether there have been any cases where an academy has refused to admit a Special Educational Needs pupil owing to budgetary constraints; and, if so, how many.

On behalf of the Secretary of State, the Education Funding Agency (EFA) deals with academy special educational needs (SEN) admission determination requests involving pupils in receipt of a statement of SEN or Education, Health and Care plan. Between January 2013 and November 2014 the EFA handled 56 admission determination requests.

The EFA does not categorise complaints about the teaching of children with SEN by academy schools, or whether a request for an SEN admission determination was received because an academy refused to admit a child owing to budgetary constraints.