Question to the Department for Education:

To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what the projected costs per child of pupils in Targeted, Targeted Plus and Specialist layers of support are, respectively.

The department is providing additional funding to boost the capacity of mainstream settings to meet the continuum of needs children have, before any legislative changes.

The ‘SEND Reform: putting children and young people first’ consultation document includes our aim that more support will be commissioned on a cohort basis to enable more flexible, responsive provision that meets children’s needs earlier and more effectively. For example, we will invest £1.8 billion over three years in our new Experts at Hand services that will ensure individual early years settings, schools and colleges can access expert support from professionals like educational psychologists and speech and language therapists, without having to commission this individually which is inefficient and high burdensome for education settings.

The support in Targeted, Targeted Plus and Specialist layers of support will be developed through future work on National Inclusion Standards and Specialist Provision Packages. These will be developed by an independent panel of experts and tested with parents.