Question to the Department for Education:

To ask the Secretary of State for Education, whether he plans to clear existing deficits in Dedicated Schools Grant High Needs block funding before the £780 million of additional funding is allocated in 2020-21.

​The Department has recently announced the high needs funding allocations for local authorities for 2020-21. This is available at: https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/dedicated-schools-grant-dsg-2020-to-2021. These allocations include an additional £780 million compared to 2019-20, and every local authority will see a minimum increase of 8% per head for those aged 2-18 years old.

In the autumn of 2019, the Department undertook a consultation on clarifying the status of the Dedicated Schools Grant and we will respond to this consultation shortly.