Question to the Department for Education:

To ask the Secretary of State for Education, how much funding for special educational needs his Department has allocated from the public purse to schools in South Yorkshire in each year since 2010.

Local authorities are required, through their local school funding formulae, to provide schools with sufficient funds to enable schools to meet the additional cost of pupils with special educational needs and disabilities (SEND), up to the value of £6,000. This funding comes from the schools block of the Dedicated Schools Grant.

When the costs of additional support required for a pupil with SEND exceed £6,000, the local authority should also allocate additional top up funding to cover the excess costs. This top-up funding, and funding for special schools, comes from the local authority’s high needs budget. In December 2018, we announced an additional £250 million in high needs funding across the current financial year and the next. Barnsley council is receiving £23.2 million for high needs this year, including its share of the £250 million, which amounted to £1.1 million.

In 2013, the schools and high needs budgets within the Dedicated Schools Grant were created. As the Dedicated Schools Grant includes other budgets such as the early years budget, the department is unable to provide comparable figures before 2013-14.

The schools and high needs allocations for the Yorkshire and the Humber and Barnsley regions since 2013-14 are set out in the below tables:

Yorkshire and the Humber