Education Secretary Bridget Phillipson said the investment would lay the groundwork for the Send reforms announced in the schools White Paper early next year. The White Paper had been due to be published in the autumn, but was delayed.
The government says it plans to cancel the building of 28 new mainstream free schools following a consultation and that it is reviewing a further 16 sites.
“We have made the decision not to go ahead with some schools where we’ve seen falling rolls because of pupil numbers and investing that money into provision for children with Send”, Ms Phillipson told the BBC.
Councils will be able to use the money from the cancelled projects to adapt existing school buildings and create more specialist spaces, so pupils are less likely to have to travel far for their education.
For example, they could create areas like breakout spaces for children who may need more support, or rooms to support children with autism or ADHD who may feel overstimulated in the classroom.
There are also 77 proposed special free schools which local authorities can decide to build, or similarly, use the funding to create the equivalent number of specialist places elsewhere.
The Conservatives described the cancellation of some planned free schools as “education vandalism”.
Shadow education secretary Laura Trott said Labour was “taking away new schools which parents want. Free schools raise standards and outperform other state schools.
“And not content with that, the government has halted shovel-ready, worked-up special schools, and replaced them with a smaller pot of money and no plan.”
The Liberal Democrats welcomed the funding, but said it needed to be “be matched by ambitious reforms to diagnosis and support”.
Councillor Amanda Hopgood from the Local Government Association says the Send places needed to be in the right location.
“If we build a big school in the middle of nowhere that we have to transport everyone to, then that’s money that isn’t used on education”.
“And those children are not being educated in their local communities where they live with their friends”.
Local authorities spent £1.5bn on transport for under-16s with Send in the 2023-24 financial year, about two-and-a-half times what it was in 2015-16.
