Asked by: Wera Hobhouse (Liberal Democrat - Bath)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, with reference to the Autumn Spending Review 2021, what steps his Department is taking to measure how effective the Government's spending plans are in tackling the backlog in new Education, Health and Care Plan assessments.
Answered by Will Quince
The government is committed to having clear oversight of local areas’ performance on special educational needs and disabilities (SEND). We work closely with Ofsted, the Care Quality Commission (CQC) and our delivery partners to support and, where appropriate, challenge those local areas at risk of, or who are, underperforming.
We are still looking at the Autumn Spending Review settlement and working across the department to ensure that it does have a measurable impact in reducing backlogs in Education, Health and Care Plan (EHCP) assessments.
However, we currently support local authorities to meet their statutory duties for SEND, including challenging those local authorities where there are long-standing backlogs in EHCP assessments. As part of this support, we deliver a training programme to local authorities, health, and social care staff on their statutory duties, as well as funding projects to support children with SEND. This in turn supports improved practice so that local authorities are able to address backlogs more effectively.
Additionally, this year, local authorities have access to £51.3 billion to deliver their core services, including SEND services. Local authorities have the flexibility to spend according to local needs and priorities, including to undertake Education, Health and Care needs assessments.
Also, educational psychologists have a statutory duty to assess the needs of individual children and young people for EHCPs. We provide funding to train cohorts of educational psychologists. Since 2020, the number of trainees has increased from 160 to over 200 per year.
Asked by: Wera Hobhouse (Liberal Democrat - Bath)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, with reference to the Autumn Spending Review 2021, what steps his Department is taking to measure how effective (a) education recovery and (b) other funding streams are in improving the mental and physical wellbeing of disabled children and parent carers.
Answered by Will Quince
As highlighted in the Disabled Children’s Partnership ‘Then There Was Silence’ report earlier this year, children and young people with special educational needs and disabilities (SEND) and their families have been disproportionately impacted by the COVID-19 outbreak.
Through the autumn Spending Review 2021, schools will receive an additional £4.7 billion in core funding in the 2024/25 financial year, including £1.6 billion for schools and high needs in 2022/23 on top of already planned increases from the 2019 Spending Review. This is equivalent to a total cash increase of £1,500 per pupil between 2019/20 and 2024/25; taking the total core schools budget to £56.8 billion in 2024/25.
This core funding sits alongside a further £1.8 billion dedicated to supporting young people to catch up on missed learning, following on from the existing investment in catch up for early years, schools and colleges, including for tutoring and teacher training opportunities. This includes a one-off £1 billion recovery premium for the next two academic years - 2022/23 and 2023/24 - to support disadvantaged pupils in all state-funded primary and secondary schools.
Outside of the Spending Review, specifically on mental health and wellbeing, the government announced on 5 March 2021 that as part of the £500 million for mental health recovery, £79 million will be used to significantly expand mental health services for children, including disabled children. £31 million will also be used to address particular challenges faced by individuals with a learning disability and autistic people, including £3 million for community respite services. For the 2021/22 academic year, the department is also providing more than £17 million to build on existing mental health support available in schools and colleges. This includes £9.5 million to enable up to a third of schools and colleges to train a senior mental health lead, as part of our commitment to fund training for leads in all schools and colleges by 2025, and £7 million into our Wellbeing for Education Recovery programme, enabling local authorities to continue supporting schools and colleges to meet ongoing mental wellbeing.
The government also announced on 6 September 2021 an additional £5.4 billion for the NHS to support the COVID-19 response over the next six months, bringing the total government support for health services in response to COVID-19 to over £34 billion this year. This includes £2 billion to tackle the elective backlog, reducing waiting times for patients, including disabled children. We are providing over £42 million in 2021/22 to continue funding projects to support children with SEND including £27.3 million to the Family Fund in 2021/22 to support over 60,000 families on low incomes raising children and young people with disabilities or serious illnesses.
Asked by: Wera Hobhouse (Liberal Democrat - Bath)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, with reference to Scope and the Disabled Children’s Partnership’s report, The gap widens, published in October 2021, which found that by funding additional investment in disabled children’s social care more disabled young people and parent carers would be able to access employment and education, what assessment his Department has made of the potential economic and social benefits from additional investment in disabled children’s social care.
Answered by Will Quince
I refer the hon. Member for Bath to the answer given to Question 44424, on 14 September 2021.
Asked by: Wera Hobhouse (Liberal Democrat - Bath)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, for what reasons schools continue to be required to complete the daily Educational Setting Status form; and for what purpose these data collected are used..
Answered by Robin Walker
Information gathered through the educational setting status form is used by the department to monitor attendance in schools, and across government to model the effects of the COVID-19 outbreak. This allows the department to provide support in developing policies to help schools manage, and ensure our ability to target educational recovery support.
The department is grateful to schools for providing this information. Following the removal of the advice to teach pupils in bubbles, the department has announced that from the beginning of October 2021 schools will only be asked to complete the educational setting status form once a week. This will be kept under review and, should the national situation require, daily reporting may be reinstated.
Asked by: Wera Hobhouse (Liberal Democrat - Bath)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what recent estimate he has made of the potential long-term financial costs of providing early intervention funding for support for disabled children and their families.
Answered by Vicky Ford
We believe it is right for local authorities, who know their areas’ needs best, to determine what services, including early help, are required locally.
Respite care services for disabled children are provided on the basis of an individual assessment of each child and family’s needs, and it is right that this individual focus continues. Throughout the COVID-19 outbreak, we ensured that respite care services for disabled children and their families were allowed to continue to operate. This applied to services which care for children in and away from home. Where parents have a disabled child under the age of 5, they were also able to establish a support bubble with another household to provide respite care.
To support local areas, the government has given over £6 billion in unringfenced funding directly to councils to support them with the immediate and longer-term impacts of COVID-19 spending pressures, including children’s services. We will continue to work with other government departments, including the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government, to ensure the upcoming Spending Review reflects the needs of children’s services.
In addition to statutory services, we are providing £27.3 million to the Family Fund in financial year 2021-22 to support over 60,000 families on low incomes raising children and young people with disabilities or serious illnesses. Grants can be used for a range of purposes, including family breaks.