How do we commission speech and language therapy for pupils?

Schools can buy in speech and language therapy from their SEN budget (the first £6,000 per pupil in 2026). But where it is named in Section F of an EHC plan, the council must arrange and fund it. Those are two different routes with two different paymasters, and the most common mistake is funding the second one out of your own budget.

Route one: what you commission yourself

For whole-school work, early intervention and pupils on SEN Support with no education, health and care (EHC) plan, the school is the commissioner. The Royal College of Speech and Language Therapists (RCSLT) is clear that schools can be commissioners in their own right, employing a therapist directly or buying in time flexibly from the NHS, a council traded service or an independent provider. You pay for this from the notional SEN budget inside your delegated budget share, which is expected to cover the first £6,000 of additional support per pupil per year before the council adds high-needs top-up funding.

Before you sign anything, work through four steps:

• Scope the need. Screen or audit your speech, language and communication needs and run the graduated approach (assess, plan, do, review) so you know how many pupils need what, and how often.
• Decide the model. A few days of bought-in therapist time, a traded-service package, or a directly employed therapist or assistant. Bought-in days suit most primary and many secondary settings.
• Specify and contract against the RCSLT and NAHT guidance for education settings on commissioning therapy, setting out hours, outcomes, supervision and reporting.
• Assure quality. Check the therapist is registered with the Health and Care Professions Council (HCPC) and that any assistant is supervised by an HCPC-registered therapist working to RCSLT standards.

Route two: when it is the council’s job, not yours

The dividing line is Section F of an EHC plan, the part that names a child’s special educational provision. The SEND Code of Practice 2015 says speech and language therapy should normally be recorded there as special educational provision, because communication is fundamental to education, and that where it is, ultimate responsibility for making sure it happens rests with the council (paras 9.74 and 9.76). Section 42 of the Children and Families Act 2014 then places an absolute duty on the council to secure everything written into Section F.

In practice your school usually hosts that delivery, but you must not absorb the cost from your delegated budget, and you should not double-fund a child by paying again for therapy the council is already bound to provide. If the council names therapy in Section F and then does not secure it, that is a breach of its legal duty, and you can hold it to that duty rather than quietly filling the gap yourself.

Escalate rather than absorb

Where a pupil’s needs cost more than £6,000 a year, ask the council for high-needs top-up funding rather than stretching your own budget. Where therapy is named in Section F and is not being delivered, put it to the council in writing as a Section 42 duty it is failing to meet. Keeping these two routes separate protects both your budget and the child’s statutory entitlement.

For the funding and statutory background, see the school’s notional SEN budget, the council’s duty to secure Section F provision and how to deliver SEN Support. For classroom practice, see supporting a non-verbal pupil to communicate.

This page is general information, not clinical or legal advice.