Question to the Department for Education:

To ask the Secretary of State for Education, pursuant to the Answer of 18 April to Question 20456 on Special Educational Needs: Stockport Metropolitan Borough Counci, what estimate her Department has made of the number of local authorities that are not delivering their education, health and care function as a result of constraints upon the general fund.

Responsibility for local authority funding lies with the Department for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities (DLUHC).

Local authorities have a statutory responsibility to assess whether children and young people have special educational needs that require an Education, Health and Care (EHC) plan. EHC plans must be issued within twenty weeks of the needs assessment commencing so that children and young people can access the support they need.

In 2022, 49.2% of EHC plans were issued within the twenty week time limit. Where local authorities are failing to deliver, the department works with them using a range of improvement programmes and special educational needs and disabilities (SEND) specialist advisers to address weaknesses. The department is also putting in place measures such as developing new national standards and a standardised EHC plan process to improve the SEND system so that, where an EHC plan is needed, they can be issued as quickly as possible to ensure children and young people can access the support they need.