Question to the Department for Education:

To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what steps his Department is taking to increase the number of school places available for pupils with special educational needs and disabilities.

The department is investing £2.6 billion between 2022 and 2025 to support local authorities to deliver new places and improve existing provision for children and young people with special educational needs and disabilities (SEND), or who require alternative provision (AP). This represents a significant, transformational investment in new high needs provision. It will support local authorities to deliver new places in mainstream and special schools, as well as other specialist settings, and will also be used to improve the suitability and accessibility of existing buildings, more than tripling previous levels of investment.

In March 2022, as part of this commitment, the department announced High Needs Provision Capital Allocations amounting to over £1.4 billion of new investment, focused on the 2023/24 and 2024/25 academic years. In June 2022, the department also announced that we will build up to 60 new centrally delivered special and AP free schools.

This funding comes on top of the investment of £300 million in 2021/22, and the department’s ongoing investment in new special and AP special schools. As of 1 October 2022, there are 90 open special free schools and 50 open AP free schools, with a further 48 special and 7 AP free schools due to open in the future.

This investment is alongside the increase in high needs revenue funding for children and young people with complex needs. This is rising by £1 billion in the 2022/23 financial year, an increase of 13%, which brings total high needs funding to £9.1 billion. In addition, the department is continuing to work with local authorities with the highest dedicated schools grant deficits as part of the safety valve programme and the introduction of the Delivering Better Value programme.

Alongside our continued investment in high needs, the department remains committed to ensuring a financially sustainable system, where resources are effectively targeted to need. The consultation on the SEND and AP Green Paper closed on 22 July, and the department will confirm the next steps in implementing our reform programme in due course.