Question to the Department for Education:

To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what the (a) initial and (b) additional allocated budgets for special needs provision in Bexley schools have been in each of the last five years.

Local authorities are required to provide schools with sufficient funds to enable them to meet the additional cost of pupils with special educational needs (SEN) and disabilities, up to £6,000. This notional SEN budget is part of the local authority’s schools budget.

When the costs of additional support required for a pupil with SEN exceed £6,000, the local authority should also allocate additional top-up funding to cover the excess costs. This funding comes from the local authority’s high needs budget. This budget also pays for provision in special schools.

The schools and high needs funding allocations for the last 5 years in Bexley have been taken from the dedicated schools grant allocation tables for the respective year, and are presented below.

*In these years, the balance between schools and high needs funding was readjusted.