Question to the Department for Education:

To ask Her Majesty's Government what action they are taking, if any, against Local Authorities that withhold part of the Schools Supplementary Grant to bring down their council's deficit.

Special schools and academies are funded from the high needs funding block of the dedicated schools grant (DSG). In December 2021, we increased local authorities’ DSG to allocate an additional £325 million for the 2022/23 financial year. This was the amount of supplementary high needs funding the department was able to add to local authorities’ allocations following the autumn 2021 Spending Review.

The department allocated this supplementary funding as closely as possible to what would have been allocated had we been able to distribute it through the national funding formula (NFF). Local authorities are, therefore, able to provide their schools with increases as part of the top-up funding paid from their high needs budgets.

The department received some feedback from schools that local authorities have not been passing on this increase in funding in full. We do not prescribe in detail how local authorities allocate their top-up funding and are not, therefore, taking action against local authorities solely on the grounds that they are using the supplementary high needs funding to bring down their DSG deficit. Nevertheless, the department expects all local authorities to ensure that they are fulfilling their statutory duties under the Children and Families Act 2014 to provide funding for schools, where that is needed to secure provision and support for children and young people with special educational needs and disabilities. We will keep the regulations and guidance governing how local authorities allocate their high needs budgets under review.