Special Educational Needs: Finance

(asked on 29th March 2018) - View Source

Question to the Department for Education:

To ask Her Majesty's Government what additional financial support is given to those schools with a high number of pupils on Education, Health and Care plans.


Answered by
 Portrait
Lord Agnew of Oulton
This question was answered on 13th April 2018

Mainstream schools are funded through the formula set by their local authority. The funding formula is decided by each local authority and often uses factors such as pupils’ prior level of attainment in the school, to give an estimate of additional support required for pupils’ special educational needs (SEN).

In addition to the core funding provided to mainstream schools, we provide each local authority with a high needs budget. This supports provision for children and young people with SEN and disabilities, and alternative provision for pupils who cannot receive education in schools.

Local authorities are required to delegate funds to a level that enables schools to meet the additional cost of supporting pupils with SEN up to £6,000 per annum. When a school can demonstrate that the costs exceed this, the local authority should allocate top-up funding from its high needs budget.

The local authority can also use its high needs budget to give extra funding to schools with a disproportionate number of pupils with SEN, including those with a high number of pupils on education, health and care plans.

We provided local authorities with £130 million of additional funding for high needs last year, and are providing a further £142 million this year, bringing the total high needs funding across England to £6 billion per annum.

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