Question to the Department for Education:

To ask the Secretary of State for Education, whether she plans to take steps to help reduce regional differences in SEND funding.

The government is providing an increase of £1 billion for high needs budgets in England in the 2025/26 financial year. This brings total high needs funding for children and young people with special educational needs and disabilities (SEND) to over £12 billion. Of this, West Sussex Council is being allocated over £140 million through the high needs funding block of the dedicated schools grant (DSG), an increase of over £11 million on their 2024/25 DSG high needs block.

The operation of the high needs funding system is currently under review. The department's aim is to establish a fair education funding system that directs funding to where it is needed, taking account of the different levels of need in different parts of the country, and to enable improved support for children and young people with SEND in line with the reforms that we intend to set out in a White Paper in the autumn.