Question to the Department for Education:

To ask the Secretary of State for Education, What the average proportion of children in mainstream education who were diagnosed with special educational needs or disability was in each year between 2010 and 2017.

This information is in the public domain. We publish the number and proportion of pupils with special educational needs, including those who are also eligible for and claiming free school meals in England in the annual ‘Special educational needs in England’ statistical release which can be found at:

https://www.gov.uk/government/collections/statistics-special-educational-needs-sen.

We publish results from the Children in Need census in the annual ‘Characteristics of children in need’ statistical release which can be found at:

https://www.gov.uk/government/collections/statistics-children-in-need#characteristics-of-children-in-need.

The number and proportion of children in need who have special educational needs are included in the Outcomes Tables, which were first published in 2012. We will publish the latest figures for 2017 on 28 March 2018.