§ Mr. SteinbergTo ask the Secretary of State for Education what percentage of the education budget is allocated to special needs schools at the present time; and if he will make a statement about future needs funding.
§ Mr. ForthIt is for each local education authority to decide how much of its budget to allocate to special needs. In 1989–90, the latest year for which information on actual spending is available, English local education authorities' net recurrent expenditure on maintained special education represented some 5.7 per cent. of their total net recurrent expenditure on education. That percentage does not include spending on special needs within mainstream schools nor on support services for special needs, for which information is not collected separately.
The Government's proposals for education spending by local authorities in 1993–94 will be announced in the autumn.