The Department for Education (DfE) has launched a consultation in a bid to make the distribution of special educational needs and disability (SEND) funding fairer.

It comes after minister for schools David Laws announced in July there would be changes in the current system to address unfairness.

The consultation said: “We have no specific funding changes in mind, although we are planning for a distribution that is more formulaic, and less based on past levels of allocation that have become outdated, and on local decisions on spending that have partly determined how much is allocated.”

It added: “In particular, we would be interested in finding out why the same pupils and students with SEND, or pupils and students with very similar needs, can be assessed very differently in different local authorities; and how this has made a difference to the allocation of funding.”

The DfE has also asked Isos Partnership to carry out research and will speak to 13 local authorities – Bromley, Bury, Devon, East Riding of Yorkshire, Gateshead, Herefordshire, Lambeth, Leicestershire, Manchester, Newcastle, Somerset, Southend-on-Sea, and West Sussex.

The DfE is seeking responses by February 27, 2015.