Authorities are required to provide schools with sufficient funds to enable schools to meet the additional cost of pupils with special educational needs (SEN) and disabilities, up to £6,000. Top-up funding is then provided from local authorities high needs budgets. Nationally, high needs funding is £6 billion this year, and will total £6.3 billion in 2019-20. We recognise that local authorities are facing cost pressures, which is why we have allocated an additional £250 million across all local authorities, over this year and next year. This funding will help local authorities to manage their cost pressures. Funding for 2020-21 and beyond will be determined in the Spending Review.

Local authorities are required to provide schools with sufficient funds to enable schools to meet the additional cost of pupils with special educational needs (SEN) and disabilities up to £6,000. When the costs of additional support required for a pupil with SEN exceed £6,000, the authority should also allocate additional top-up funding to cover the excess costs. This funding comes from the authority’s high needs budget. Nationally, high needs funding has risen from a total of £5 billion in 2013 to over £6 billion in 2018-19.

Local authorities recorded in their section 251 reports for 2017-18 that there was a combined spend of £2.3 billion on top-up funding in maintained schools and academies, and £1 billion in non-maintained and independent providers. This information can be found at: https://www.gov.uk/guidance/section-251-2017-to-2018#section-251-budget-data.

The great majority of pupils attracting top-up funding have an education, health and care (EHC) plan. In the calendar year 2017, there were 319,819 children and young people with active EHC plans.

No schools will lose funding in the current academic year for those Year 9 pupils who have made an early transfer to Warrington University Technical College (UTC). The department is aware that concerns have been raised about the UTC’s actions and is discussing them with the UTC, the local authority and representatives from local schools.