Question to the Department for Education:

To ask the Secretary of State for Education, whether she plans to increase funding for schools for children with special educational needs and disabilities.

High needs funding for children and young people with complex special educational needs and disabilities (SEND) will be rising to £10.1 billion in 2023/24, which is an increase of over 50% from the 2019/20 allocations. This extra funding will help Local Authorities and schools with the increasing costs of supporting them.

Sefton Council’s high needs funding allocation for financial year 2023/24 will be £46 million, which is a 10.9% per head increase compared to the amount of high needs funding allocated in 2022/23. It is not possible to break this funding down to individual constituency level.

The Department does not prescribe in detail how Local Authorities should allocate their high needs funding, but Local Authorities and schools have statutory duties under the Children and Families Act 2014 to support children and young people with SEND.