SEND Places: Gloucestershire

7. What recent estimate she has made of the number of school places available for pupils with special educational needs in Gloucestershire.

Places for pupils with special educational needs and disabilities have increased in Gloucestershire since 2015. We estimate that there are 1,700 places, and the local authority opened two additional settings in 2022-23.

At the moment, 120 pupils have been assessed as needing special school places, but those places are not available. Over the next couple of years it looks like at least 200 more special school places will be needed in Gloucestershire. Can the Minister look at the situation urgently to see what he can do to help?

We are working closely with local authorities on this issue. We have allocated more than £1.5 billion of high needs capital allocations in the last two years for local authorities to create additional places. Gloucestershire County Council has announced a 200-place moderate and additional learning difficulties school for four to 16-year-olds, to be delivered through our free school presumption route in early 2026.

There are only three specialist schools provided by the state in Shropshire. Two of them are—

Order. The supplementary question should relate to the question on the Order Paper.

Just as in Gloucestershire, we are short of specialist schools—two of our three are rated as inadequate and need improving. The most vulnerable children are unable to go to school because need is not being met. Will the Minister look at what can be done in Shropshire to provide places for the most seriously affected children?

In addition to working with Gloucestershire, we work with Shropshire on its capacity. We have already announced 41 new special free schools with a further 38 in the pipeline.