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Special Educational Needs: Finance

Asked by Graham StuartConservativeDepartment for EducationTabled Answered 18 July 2025UIN 66527

The question

To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what assessment her Department has made of potential impact of local authority funding for Special Educational Needs and Disabilities provision on outcomes for children with SEND; and whether her Department holds data on children's outcomes across local authorities with differing levels of SEND funding.

Answered by Catherine McKinnell

The department publishes a High Needs Benchmarking Tool, which offers comparative data on local authorities’ high needs spending and related special educational needs and disabilities (SEND) indicators across local authorities. This tool may assist in understanding variations between local authorities in how they fund SEND provision.

The department also publishes a variety of data on children’s and young people’s outcomes by special educational needs across all local authorities. A summary of these outcomes and their sources can be found here: https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/media/66bdc2de3effd5b79ba490fd/Special_educational_needs_and_disability_analysis_and_summary_of_data_sources_Aug24.pdf.

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