Question to the Department for Education:

To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what plans she has to assess the adequacy of funding for SEND provision (a) nationally and (b) in York.

The department continues to assess and monitor financial performance in York through regular meetings with officials, departmental special educational needs and disabilities (SEND) advisors, and through the Safety Valve programme.

High needs funding for supporting children and young people with complex SEND in England is increasing by a further £440 million, or 4.3%, in the next 2024/25 financial year, which will bring the total high needs budget to £10.5 billion. This is an increase of over 60% from the 2019/20 high needs allocations. This funding will help local authorities and schools with the increasing costs of provision for these children and young people.

The department has recently announced provisional 2024/25 high needs allocations for local authorities and City of York Council‘s allocation is £27 million, which is £0.7 million more than the council will receive this year, an increase of 3.0% per head, and 27% per head over the three years from 2021/22.

The department has also published over £1.5 billion of high needs provision capital allocations for the 2022/23 and 2023/24 financial years. This funding is allocated to local authorities to support them deliver new places and improve existing provision for children and young people with SEND or who require alternative provision. This funding forms part of the department’s transformational investment of £2.6 billion in new high needs provision between 2022 and 2025 and is on top of our ongoing delivery of new special and alternative provision free schools.

Of the £1.5 billion announced, City of York Council received over £8.2 million.