Question to the Department for Education:

To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what steps she is taking to increase funding for schools with a high concentration of students with special educational needs.

Mainstream schools are currently funded through the formula set by their local authority, in consultation with its schools. The local funding formula often uses factors such as low prior attainment and free school meals to give an estimate of the number of children with special educational needs (SEN) a school is likely to have.

Local authorities are required to delegate funds, through these and other formula factors, to a level that enables schools to meet the additional cost of pupils with SEN, up to £6,000 per annum. When the costs of additional support required for a pupil with SEN exceed £6,000, local authorities should allocate top-up funding from its high needs budget to cover the excess costs. The local authority can also give additional funding from its high needs budget to schools that have a disproportionate number of pupils with SEN.

The Department is currently consulting on national funding formulae for schools and high needs, which will make funding fairer by matching funding to children’s needs and the schools they attend. The consultations can be found at https://consult.education.gov.uk/funding-policy-unit/schools-national-funding-formula2/ and https://consult.education.gov.uk/funding-policy-unit/high-needs-funding-reform-2/

In the meantime, in 2016-17 the Department provided local authorities with £92.5 million of additional funding for high needs, and will be providing a further £130 million in 2017-18.