Asked by: James Duddridge (Conservative - Rochford and Southend East)
Question to the Department for Education:
What steps his Department is taking to improve support for children with special educational needs and disabilities.
Answered by Nadhim Zahawi
We have been strengthening the Special Educational Needs and Disabilities system through the biggest programme of reforms in a generation. We have legislated to improve the system and have invested £341 million since 2014 to help ensure the reforms make a real difference. We will continue to build on this, so that every child has the chance to fulfil their potential.
Asked by: James Duddridge (Conservative - Rochford and Southend East)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what estimate her Department has made of the funding required to provide new capacity in Shoeburyness High School before September 2018.
Answered by Nick Gibb
Nationally, we have allocated £5.8bn from 2015 to 2020 to create more school places. Between 2010 and 2016, 735,000 new school places have been created.
Local authorities are responsible for planning and securing sufficient school places in their area, and supporting them in doing so is one of this Government’s top priorities. Local authorities make decisions on where to add capacity, based on local circumstances. Southend-on-Sea has received £20 million for new places between 2011 and 2017 and has been allocated a further £9.5 million for 2017 to 2020.
Asked by: James Duddridge (Conservative - Rochford and Southend East)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what her most recent estimate is of the funding required to establish a free school in Southend-on-Sea in 2019; and if she will make a statement.
Answered by Robert Goodwill
The department has not made an estimate of the funding required to establish a free school in Southend-on-Sea in 2019.
The department has provided Southend-on-Sea Borough Council with £20 million to fund new school places between 2011 and 2017 and a further £9.5 million for 2017 to 2020. This includes nearly £5 million for school places the local authority reported were needed for September 2019.
Where a local authority has identified that an area needs enough additional places to warrant a new school, it should run a competition to identify potential providers to run the school.
Guidance on this process is available on GOV.UK via this link:
https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/establishing-a-new-school-free-school-presumption.