Secretary of State for Education (): Today, I am announcing a
further £850 million investment in places for children and young
people with Special Educational Needs and Disabilities (SEND) or
who require Alternative Provision (AP). I am also announcing £1.8
billion in capital funding for the 2024-25 financial year to
improve the condition of buildings at schools and sixth-form
colleges.
Funding for SEND and AP places
Spread over this financial year and next, our £850 million
investment forms part of our record £2.6 billion funding in high
needs capital between 2022 and 2025, and represents a
significant, transformational investment in new high needs
provision. This funding will support local authorities to deliver
new places in mainstream and special schools, as well as other
specialist settings, and will also be used to improve suitability
and accessibility of existing buildings. Along with the funding
already provided, it will mean this government is delivering over
60,000 new places for children with SEND or who require AP since
2010.
The methodology for calculating each local authority’s allocation
has been updated to target the funding to the areas where it is
needed most. This will help to ensure that families have access
to the localised, specialised support that their children need.
30 successful applications to run special free schools have also
been announced today.
Full details of this announcement, including allocations broken
down by local authority and the methodology used to distribute
funding, have been published on the Department for Education
section on the GOV.UK website here:
https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/high-needs-provision-capital-allocations.
Funding for school condition
Today’s announcement on funding to improve school condition means
we will have invested over £17 billion since 2015 to support
local authorities, academy trusts and other bodies responsible
for school buildings, to keep their estates safe and
well-maintained.
The £1.8 billion includes £450 million made available through the
Condition Improvement Fund (CIF) programme for financial year
2024-25. As part of this, we have today announced projects to
improve condition across 733 schools and sixth-form colleges.
It also includes almost £1.2 billion in School Condition
Allocations (SCA) including for local authorities, large
multi-academy trusts and large voluntary-aided school bodies, to
invest in improving the condition of their schools. The
proportion of funding allocated through SCA continues to grow as
more schools become part of large, strong academy trusts. Over
£200 million in Devolved Formula Capital (DFC) will also be
allocated directly for schools to spend on their capital
priorities.
The amount of SCA allocated to each eligible responsible body,
and the total for CIF, have been calculated informed by evidence
from the condition data collection. Previous administrations took
no action to have a national assessment of the condition of the
school estate. This government introduced the Condition Data
Collection (CDC), the first ever comprehensive survey of the
school estate and one of the largest data collection programmes
of its kind in Europe.
Condition allocations for 2024-25 are in addition to our
continued investment in the School Rebuilding Programme and our
commitment to remove all RAAC from the school estate in England.
Details of today’s CIF announcement are being sent to all CIF
applicants and a list of successful projects will be published on
GOV.UK. Copies will be placed in the House Library. The full
methodology, guidance and allocations amounts for SCA and DFC
will also be published on GOV.UK.
