Special Educational Needs

(asked on 1st December 2020) - View Source

Question to the Department for Education:

To ask the Secretary of State for Education, with reference to £300 million of funding for new school places for children with special educational needs and disabilities included in the Spending review 2020, what estimate his Department has made of the number of new school places for children with SEND that funding will create; and what proportion of those places will be in mainstream schools.


Answered by
Nick Gibb Portrait
Nick Gibb
This question was answered on 9th December 2020

As announced by my right hon. Friend, the Chancellor of the Exchequer, on 25 November 2020, the department will invest £300 million, in the financial year 2021-22, in school places for children with special educational needs and disabilities. This is almost four times as much as the government provided to local authorities in the financial year 2020-21 for this purpose. We estimate this could support the delivery of over 5,000 additional High Needs places, though the figure will vary depending on the type of capital works invested in. Further details on how this funding will be distributed will be announced in due course.

In addition to this, the Spending Review announcement has committed £1.8 billion, in the 2021-22 financial year, for maintaining and improving the condition of the school estate. The majority of condition funding is devolved to local authorities, academy trusts, voluntary aided bodies, and schools, as they are best placed to prioritise investment based on local condition need. We will set out further details of how the funding will be allocated in due course.

Reticulating Splines