Schools: Special Educational Needs
(asked on 15th December 2025) - View Source
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what information her Department holds on the amount spent by local authorities on (a) independent, and (b) non-maintained special schools in each year since 2020.
Answered by
Olivia Bailey
Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State (Department for Education) (Equalities)
The table below sets out the information on actual expenditure by local authorities for the financial years from 2020/21 to 2024/25. From the information supplied by local authorities, it is not possible to differentiate between the total amounts spent on independent special schools and the total amounts spent on non-maintained special schools.
Financial Year | Direct spending by local authorities on independent and non-maintained special schools (NMSS) (£000s) | NMSS place funding at £10,000 (£000s) | Total (£000s) | Cost per pupil with an education, health and care (EHC) plan (£) |
2024/25 | £2,137,630 | £43,810 | £2,181,440 | £64,000 |
2023/24 | £1,828,135 | £41,790 | £1,869,925 | £63,000 |
2022/23 | £1,551,030 | £42,210 | £1,593,240 | £62,000 |
2021/22 | £1,343,528 | £40,880 | £1,384,408 | £57,000 |
2020/21 | £1,133,670 | £39,070 | £1,172,740 | £54,000 |
Notes:
- 2023/24 excludes direct spending by Cumberland and by Westmorland and Furness Counsels as these local authorities did not submit outturn data for 2023/24.
- The NMSS place funding at £10,000 per place includes a £6,000 per place cost to local authorities through the deductions from their high needs' allocations. The rest is funded centrally by the department.
- The EHC plan numbers for each year come from the SEN2 data collection.
- These figures have been rounded to the nearest £1,000.