Question to the Department for Education:

To ask His Majesty's Government what was the total expenditure on special educational needs in England in 2023–24; and what is their forecast expenditure for 2024–25.

Education is a devolved matter, and the response outlines the information for England only.

Local authorities spent £7.9 billion on education for children and young people with complex special educational needs and disabilities (SEND) in the 2022/23 financial year. The Education and Skills Funding Agency (ESFA) also allocated a further £1.0 billion on funding for SEND places directly to providers in that financial year. The outturn data for expenditure in the last financial year (2023/24) is not yet available but is due to be published later in 2024. Planned expenditure reported by local authorities for that year was £9.4 billion and the ESFA’s expenditure was £1.1 billion.

These figures do not include the amounts spent by mainstream schools and colleges from their budgets on children and young people with lower level SEND. The department does not collect this expenditure information from individual schools and colleges.