Question to the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government:

To ask the Secretary of State for Housing, Communities and Local Government, what recent discussions he has had with the Secretary of State for Education on increasing local authority provided support for visually impaired children.

My colleagues and I meet regularly with counterparts across government, including colleagues from the Department for Education (DfE), to discuss a range of policies and programmes. Next year’s settlement for local government recognises the critical role councils play, and responds to the pressures they face, by providing access to the largest year-on-year increase in Core Spending Power (CSP) in over a decade. Under our proposals, CSP is expected to rise from £46.2 billion to £49.1 billion in 2020-21; an estimated increase of 4.3 per cent in real terms. These resources are largely unringfenced and therefore available for local authorities to spend in line with their local priorities.

DfE has also recently announced an increase of £780 million in 2020-21 to their high needs budget, which pays for children and young people with complex special educational needs and disabilities. This will bring the high needs budget to over £7 billion, with every local authority seeing a minimum funding increase of 8 per cent per person aged 2-18 years old.