We will all know somebody with special educational needs or disabilities and understand how vital it is to get a child with special educational needs or disabilities the right support early on. In recent years, we have seen a massive increase in special educational needs in our country, which is why we have expanded funding to a record level—at £10.5 billion, up by 60% in the last five years—and why we are reforming the system to deal with the increase in demand, including the biggest investment in building special educational needs school places in our country’s history.

The data is not held in the format requested as a national access and waiting times standard for National Health Service mental health services has not yet been defined. Currently, access and waiting times standards exist for Improving Access to Psychological Therapies services and performance data is available at the following link:

https://digital.nhs.uk/data-and-information/data-collections-and-data-sets/data-sets/improving-access-to-psychological-therapies-data-set;

Early intervention for psychosis services performance data is available at the following link:

https://www.england.nhs.uk/statistics/statistical-work-areas/eip-waiting-times/

Children and young people's eating disorder services performance data is available at the following link:

https://www.england.nhs.uk/statistics/statistical-work-areas/cyped-waiting-times/

The NHS Long Term Plan committed to invest at least an additional £2.3 billion a year into mental health services by 2023/24. This increased investment will ensure that an additional 345,000 children and young people and 380,000 more adults will have timely access to NHS funded mental health services.

During the COVID-19 outbreak, the department has worked with further education provider associations to understand the need for support on devices among adult students. For adults aged 19 and over, we have introduced flexibilities to the Education and Skills Funding Agency Adult Education Budget (AEB) funding rules for the 2020-21 academic year to enable providers to use learner support funds to purchase IT devices and/or internet access for disadvantaged students to help meet technology costs. In areas where the AEB budget is devolved, mayoral authorities determine adult student support arrangements.

Earlier this year, we updated our further education operational guidance to emphasise the importance of preserving on-site provision for those students who need it, including vulnerable learners. We outlined our definition of vulnerable learners to be clear that those who may have difficulty engaging with remote education at home, for example due to a lack of devices or quiet space to study, can be considered vulnerable and therefore able to attend onsite provision during the period of national lockdown: https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/951465/January_2021_FE_operational_guidance_FINAL.pdf.

For adults aged 19 and over with an education, health and care plan who are in receipt of free meals, further education providers will shortly be able to receive devices through the Get Help with Technology service: https://get-help-with-tech.education.gov.uk/devices/how-to-order. The majority of further education providers with eligible learners will be able to order their devices by the end of January.

We understand the challenges faced by further education providers and will continue to work with the sector to establish the best way to support students to make up for the disruption due to COVID-19. It is our ambition that all students have the chance to make up for lost education.

We support English for speakers of other languages courses as part of our wider effort to improve adult literacy in England through the £1.34 billion Adult Education Budget (AEB). We have changed the AEB Funding Rules for the 2020-21 academic year to enable providers to use their Learner Support funds to purchase IT devices for learners aged 19 and over, and to help them meet learners’ IT connectivity costs, where these costs are a barrier to accessing or continuing in their training. In areas where the AEB has been devolved, Mayoral Combined Authorities and the Greater London Authority are responsible for considering any provider flexibilities in their areas.

Wherever possible, we want apprentices and employers to continue apprenticeships and complete end-point assessment. We are working closely with the Institute for Apprenticeships and Technical Education (IfATE) to introduce flexibilities to mitigate the effects of disruption to assessment, training or employment caused by the Covid-19 outbreak.

End-point assessments can now be carried out remotely if they are authorised by the external quality assurance provider for the apprenticeship standard. The requirements for this are set out in the guidance published on the IfATE’s website: https://www.instituteforapprenticeships.org/response-to-covid-19/.

Our intention is to safeguard the quality of apprenticeships and end-point assessment is an important part of that. We do not consider that it would be appropriate to estimate an apprentice’s occupational competence by other means.

Guidance setting out how the apprenticeship programme is responding to the impact of Covid-19 is available here: www.gov.uk/government/publications/coronavirus-covid-19-apprenticeship-programme-response. We are keeping the guidance under review and will publish updates as the situation evolves.