Question to the Department for Education:

To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what information her Department holds on the number of children in early years settings for whom Special Educational Needs Inclusion Funding payments were being made on 31 December 2023.

Local authorities establish Special Educational Needs Inclusion Funds (SENIFs) locally, using funding from the early years and high needs blocks of their Dedicated Schools Grant allocation.

The department does not hold information relating to the SENIF at this level.

The department requires all local authorities to submit their planned early years spending on funding for 2, 3 and 4 year olds, including on SENIFs, annually via their Section 251 budget statement returns, and publishes tools which allow analysis of that data. For the 2023/24 financial year, total planned spending on SENIFs, as reported by local authorities, is £88,316,241.