Question to the Department for Education:

To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what assessment he has made of the potential merits of ensuring that funding for SEN pupils follows individual pupils.

The current arrangements for funding pupils with special educational needs (SEN) in mainstream schools were introduced in 2013. Local authorities are required to allocate funds to schools to a level that enables them to meet the additional cost of pupils with SEN up to £6,000 per annum. This ensures that funding follows pupils to the schools that provide their education and SEN support, and also that there are not perverse incentives for schools to label children as having SEN to attract funding for additional support that is not needed.

The new national funding formula for schools distributes the majority of funding to local authorities on the basis of pupil numbers and characteristics. Local authorities then fund schools under a local formula that allocates funding to schools based on their pupils and their characteristics. Factors such as the number of pupils with low attainment in the previous phase of their education act as a proxy for the level of SEN in a school. When the costs of additional support required for a pupil with SEN exceed £6,000, the local authority should allocate additional top-up funding to cover the excess costs. This top-up funding follows the pupil for as long as they are at the school and require additional support at that level. Similarly, pupils with SEN in special schools also receive top-up funding from an authority’s high needs budget to cover costs in excess of special school place funding.

We continue to keep these arrangements under review to make sure that resources are directed where they are needed to support children and young people with SEN.