Question to the Department for Education:

To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what steps her Department is taking to increase support for autistic (a) children and (b) young adults in the education system.

In the Special Educational Needs and Disability (SEND) and Alternative Provision (AP) Improvement Plan, published in March 2023, the department set out its vision to improve mainstream education through setting standards for early and accurate identification of need and timely access to support to meet those with SEND. The standards will clarify the types of support that should be ordinarily available in mainstream settings, who is responsible for securing the support and from which budgets. This will give children and young people confidence and clarity on how their needs will be met. The department will establish a single national system that delivers for every child and young person with SEND, including autism, so that they enjoy their childhood, achieve good outcomes, and are well prepared for adulthood and employment.

In the immediate term, the system is being supported to deliver change and improve the experience and outcomes for children and young people with SEND, including autism, by investing:

• A further £21 million to train 400 more educational psychologists across the 2024 and 2025 academic years to increase the capacity of specialists.
• £2.6 billion between 2022 and 2025 to fund new special and AP places and improve existing provision, including announcing 41 new special free schools, with a further 38 special free schools currently in the pipeline.
• £18 million between 2022 and 2025 to double the capacity of the Supported Internships Programme. In addition, up to a further £3 million has been invested to pilot extending Supported Internships to young people with learning difficulties and disabilities without Education, Health and Care plans.
• £30 million to develop innovative approaches for short breaks for children, young people, and their families over three years.
• An additional £6 million to fund extension of the AP Specialist Taskforce pilot programme (delivering now in 22 local authorities), to run until 2025.
• Funding for up to 7,000 early years staff to gain an accredited Level 3 Early Years Special Educational Needs Coordinator (SENCO) qualification to support the development of the early years workforce.

To help frontline professionals better support the needs of autistic children and young people in their settings, the department’s Universal Services contract offers autism awareness training and resources for the school and further education workforce. This aligns with the all-age autism strategy and its ambition to improve autistic children and young people’s access to education and support positive transitions into adulthood. Over 100,000 professionals have undertaken autism awareness training as part of a train the trainer model since the Universal Services programme launched in 2022.

Additionally, new practitioner standards are being developed to further help education staff support children and young people with SEND. The first three practitioner standards, including one on autism, will be published by the end of 2025.