A simple explanation of funding rules for children with SEND

As many of you know trying to get funding for SEND children has become increasing difficult, often leaving childcare providers having to fund one to one themselves.

From April 2017 a local SEN inclusion fund will be set up by local authorities, the Department for Education are asking for this to be done to allow for additional support for children who have a lower level or emerging SEND.

The idea is local authorities will be given a top up on funding on a case by case basis. By doing this it will give the local councils an indication of which children should be eligible for the inclusion funding.

Since last year there have been new changes to the funding provision of SEND, these includes the introduction of the disability element, the SEND Inclusion Fund and the Disability Access Fund.

For childcare providers, it can very frustrating as there isn’t a pot of money for funding children with SEND, when in fact, the additional funding can be crucial in helping support the child. This is all set to change as the SEND inclusion fund will be accessible for early years. To help understand what will happen funding will be combined with one or both of their early years and high needs funding blocks. There have however been some concerns that funding will be solely sourced from the early years funding pot, meaning that potentially the overall base rate may be reduced. Take a look here at the funding allocations for each local authority for 2017-2018

To read more about the confirmation of SEND funding click here