Government Response

The Government responded to this petition on Wednesday 19th April 2023

The Government is investing £2.6 billion between 2022 and 2025 to support local authorities to deliver new specialist SEND places and increasing high needs revenue funding to £10.1 billion in 2023-24.

The £2.6 billion investment in high needs provision announced in October 2022 represents a significant, transformational investment in new high needs provision, and will help fulfil the government’s 2019 manifesto commitment to deliver additional places for children and young people with special educational needs and disabilities (SEND) or who require alternative provision (AP).

As part of this funding commitment, in March 2022, we announced High Needs Provision Capital Allocations amounting to over £1.4 billion of new investment. This funding is to support local authorities (LAs) to deliver new places for academic years 2023/24 and 2024/25 and improve existing provision for children and young people with SEND or who require AP.

This funding follows investment of £300 million in financial year 2021-22 and £365 million between 2018 and 2021.

High Needs Provision Capital Allocations for 2021 to 2024 are published at https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/high-needs-provision-capital-allocations. SEND provision capital funding allocations for 2018 to 2021 are published at https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/send-provision-capital-funding-for-pupils-with-ehc-plans.

Furthermore, starting from Summer 2023 we will, for the first time, be collecting data from LAs on available capacity in special schools, SEN units and resourced provision, along with corresponding forecasts of demand for these places. This data will help the Department to more effectively support LAs to fulfil their statutory duty to provide sufficient specialist places.

In addition to the direct capital allocations to LAs, we have committed to delivering up to 60 new special and AP free schools. This is in addition to the 92 open special free schools that already exist, as well as the 48 special free schools in the pipeline.

On 10 June 2022 we launched the 2022 special free school application wave, with the publication of our ‘how to apply’ guidance. The application window for LAs wishing to apply to open a new special free school in their area closed on Friday 21 October. On 2 March 2023, as part of the announcement of the SEND and AP Improvement Plan, the Department announced the 33 LA applications that had been successful in the 2022 special free schools wave. These schools will be located in LA areas all across England.

Alongside the investment in capital funding, high needs revenue funding for children and young people with complex needs, is increasing by over 50% from 2019-20, to a total of £10.1 billion in financial year 2023-24. This funding is provided to meet the ongoing costs of supporting and educating those who need specialist SEND and alternative provision services. Every LA will see a minimum per-head increase of 9.8% in their total high needs allocations in 2023-24 compared to 2022-23. Most children with SEND are educated in mainstream schools, and receive support that costs up to £6,000 per pupil per annum from those schools’ core funding, with high needs funding meeting the costs of SEND support in excess of £6,000. Mainstream schools’ core funding is increasing by an average 5.6% per pupil in 2023-24, compared to 2022-23.

The Government remains committed to ensuring a financially sustainable SEND system where resources are effectively targeted to need. On the 2 March 2022 we published our SEND and Alternative Improvement plan
(https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/send-and-alternative-provision-improvement-plan) which sets out the steps we’re taking to make sure more children and young people with SEND or in AP get the support they need. We will continue to support the system in the immediate term to deliver change and continue to improve the experience and outcomes for children and young people with SEND and those who need AP.

Department for Education