Question to the Department for Education:

To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what support her Department is providing to local authorities facing financial strain in delivering SEND services in (a) the South West and (b) Dorset.

The department is providing an increase of £1 billion for high needs budgets in England in the 2025/26 financial year. Total high needs funding for children and young people with complex special educational needs and disabilities (SEND) is over £12 billion in 2025/26.

Of that total, the Southwest is being allocated over £983 million through the high needs funding block of the dedicated schools grant (DSG), an increase of £71 million on last year’s DSG high needs block, calculated using the high needs national funding formula. Of this amount, Dorset is being allocated over £60 million, an increase of £4 million on last year.

The department intends to set out plans for reforming the SEND system in further detail in a Schools White Paper in the autumn and are considering the funding for future years following the spending review that concluded in June. We will also set out later this year how the government will support local authorities to deal with their historic deficits.