Department for Education written question – answered at on 7 February 2019.
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what steps his Department is taking to support local authorities who have overspent on SEND budgets.
We recognise that the high needs budget faces significant pressures. As you will be aware, we have announced that we will provide £250 million additional funding for high needs over this financial year and the next. This brings the total allocated for high needs to £6.1 billion in 2018-19 and £6.3 billion in 2019-20. This additional investment will help local authorities manage those cost pressures.
Alongside the announcement of this additional funding, my right hon. Friend, the Secretary of State set out other ways in which we are helping local authorities, schools and colleges support children and young people with special educational needs and disabilities. This is available at: https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/letter-from-the-secretary-of-state-to-local-authorities.
We are also working alongside local authorities to help them plan how best to use their high needs funding. As part of this, we have introduced a high needs benchmarking tool, where local authorities can compare their high needs spending. This can be found at https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/high-needs-strategic-planning-fund.
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