Question to the Department for Education:

To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what estimate his Department has made of the total overspend of SEND budgets by local authorities in the financial year 2017-18.

The Department for Education collects information on local authority spending through the section 251 returns, which for 2017 to 2018 can be found at: https://www.gov.uk/guidance/section-251-2017-to-2018.

The department does not specifically collect information on where local authorities have overspent their high needs budgets. In 2018 to 2019, local authorities are obliged to pass at least 99.5% of their schools’ block funding, within the Dedicated Schools Grant (DSG), on to local schools; and since 2017 to 2018, have been obliged to pass at least 93% (95% in 2018 to 2019) of funding for 3 and 4 year olds to early years providers. Otherwise, local authorities are free to allocate their DSG, and in any one year may build up or draw down DSG reserves.