Schools: Special Educational Needs

(asked on 16th October 2023) - View Source

Question to the Department for Education:

To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what comparative assessment she has made of the potential merits of placing children with special educational needs and disabilities in a specialist (a) unit within a mainstream school and (b) school; and if she will make funding available for all schools to develop such a unit.


Answered by
David Johnston Portrait
David Johnston
Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Education)
This question was answered on 24th October 2023

Local authorities are responsible for deciding on the educational placement of a child or young person with an Education, Health and Care (EHC) Plan, following the statutory process set out in the Children and Families Act 2014.

In January 2023 local authorities reported that they had placed 19,346 children and young people with EHC Plans in special educational needs (SEN) units and resourced provision, and 143,458 in maintained special schools.

The department is providing local authorities with over £1.5 billion of High Needs Provision Capital Allocations for the 2022/23 and 2023/24 financial years. This funding supports local authorities in delivering new places and improving existing provision for children and young people with SEN and disabilities or who require alternative provision, including by developing new SEN units and resourced provision.

This funding forms part of our 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.

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