Question to the Department for Education:

To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what assessment her Department has made of the adequacy of the availability of school places for children with SEND.

The statutory duty to provide sufficient school places for children with Special Education Needs and Disabilities (SEND) sits with local authorities. The department supports local authorities by providing annual funding and monitors local authorities financial performance through meetings with officials, the department’s SEND advisors and through programmes such as the Safety Valve programme.

The department has published over £1.5 billion of High Needs Provision Capital Allocations (HNPCA) 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 (AP). Barnsley are receiving £7.1 million.

This funding forms part of the department’s transformational investment of £2.6 billion in new high needs provision between 2022 and 2025. This funding is on top of the department’s ongoing delivery of new special and AP free schools.

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 more effectively support local authorities to fulfil their statutory duty to provide sufficient specialist places.