To ask the Secretary of State for Education, how much funding his Department has allocated to Southampton City Council to support children with SEND needs in each of the last eight years.

Local authorities are legally required to provide schools with sufficient funds to enable schools to meet the additional cost of pupils with special educational needs and disabilities (SEND), up to £6,000 per annum per pupil. Within their local schools formula, local authorities use factors such as low prior attainment and free school meals to do this. This funding is provided from the local authority’s schools budget.

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. In addition, the local authority pays the full costs for all children who are placed in special schools. This funding comes from the authority’s high needs budget.

The department has allocated funding in separate blocks for schools and high needs since 2013-14. Southampton’s allocations for each of these years are shown below. These were taken from the dedicated schools grant allocations for each year. Allocations for 2018-19 can be found at https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/dedicated-schools-grant-dsg-2018-to-2019.