Special Educational Needs: support in England
An overview of the current system of support for children and young people with special educational needs, and pressure on the system. Updated with new 2024-25 SEND incidence and EHC plan data

On 10 October 2017 at 4:30pm, there will be an hour long Westminster Hall debate on Education Funding in South Liverpool. The debate is sponsored by Maria Eagle MP.
Education funding in South Liverpool (188 KB , PDF)
This debate pack includes background on the wider national school funding context and reforms, plus information on the new National Funding Formula’s operation in the Liverpool area.
The Government is planning major school funding reforms for England, including the introduction of a new schools National Funding Formula (NFF). It announced some changes to its funding reform plans in July 2017, and “£1.3 billion for schools and high needs across 2018-19 and 2019-20 in addition to the schools budget set at spending review 2015”. It confirmed these arrangements, with some further changes, in September 2017.
The schools NFF will operate as a ‘soft’ format in 2018-19 and 2019-20, to work out notional individual school budgets only. These will then be aggregated; it will be up to local areas to then determine how to share out overall core funding between schools. They’ll do this in line with Government guidance, which has been revised so that the NFF can be more closely followed in local arrangements.
The key policy aims of the NFF reforms have been widely welcomed. However, many argue that the overall school funding pot is too small, and schools are struggling, and will continue to struggle, to meet their running costs.
Education funding in South Liverpool (188 KB , PDF)
An overview of the current system of support for children and young people with special educational needs, and pressure on the system. Updated with new 2024-25 SEND incidence and EHC plan data
A debate on the attainment and engagement of boys in education is scheduled to take place in the House of Commons Chamber on Thursday 10 July 2025. The subject for the debate was determined by the Backbench Business Committee, and the debate will be led by Sam Rushworth MP.
This paper provides statistics on household food insecurity, food bank usage and free school meals in the UK, and tracks the impact of rising living costs.