Speech and Language Therapy: Standards

(asked on 7th July 2020) - View Source

Question to the Department for Education:

To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what plans he has to ensure that speech and language therapy services are adequately resourced to enable services to tackle the level of referrals as a result of the reopening of education and childcare settings.


Answered by
Vicky Ford Portrait
Vicky Ford
This question was answered on 15th July 2020

In 2020-21, we are allocating £7.2 billion in high needs funding across England for children with complex special educational needs and disabilities, which includes those with speech, language and communication needs.

Specifically, in response to COVID-19, we are introducing an additional catch-up premium worth a total of £650 million to support schools to rise to make up for lost teaching time. Our expectation is that this funding will be spent on the additional activities required to support children to catch up after a period of disruption to their education. Headteachers will decide how the universal catch up premium is spent to best meet the needs of their pupils. The Education Endowment Foundation has published guidance on effective interventions to support schools:
https://educationendowmentfoundation.org.uk/covid-19-resources/covid-19-support-guide-for-schools/.

We will set out how this funding will be distributed between individual schools shortly.

Local authorities’ core allocations to support children with high needs in 2021-22 will also be published shortly.

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