Question to the Department for Education:

To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what recent assessment she has made of the adequacy of the availability of placements at (a) specialist colleges and (b) residential specialist colleges for children with SEND (i) nationally and (ii) in North Yorkshire.

The statutory duty to provide sufficient school places, including for pupils with special educational needs and disabilities (SEND), sits with local authorities. The ‘Children and Families Act 2014’ requires local authorities to keep the provision for children and young people with SEND under review (including its sufficiency), working with parents, young people, and providers.

The department allocates funding to support local authorities to meet this duty and has published over £1.5 billion of High Needs Provision Capital Allocations (HNPCA) for the 2022/23 and 2023/24 financial years. North Yorkshire has been allocated a total of nearly £8.5 million through HNPCA for financial years 2022/23 and 2023/24.

This funding can be used to deliver new places in mainstream and special schools, as well as other specialist settings, and to improve the suitability and accessibility of existing buildings. Local authorities can spend the funding across the 0 to 25 age range, including in special post-16 institutions or other further education settings. The need for investment across this age range will differ between different local authorities, dependent on local circumstances, and it is therefore for local authorities to determine how to best prioritise their available funding to address their local priorities.

Starting from Summer 2023 the department has, for the first time, collected data from local authorities on available capacity in special schools, SEND units and resourced provision, along with corresponding forecasts of demand for these places.

This data will help the department to effectively support local authorities to fulfil their statutory duty to provide sufficient specialist places.

The department anticipates this being an annual data collection, forming part of the existing School Capacity Survey.