The Department said it had secured additional funding in the 2021 Spending Review including a capital settlement of £2.6 billion, part of which was for additional specialist provision.53 It told us that, as well as the extra funding, it was working directly with those local authorities with some of the largest high-needs deficits to help them get greater control over their deficits while benefiting from additional funding and delivering what their children, young people and families need. It explained that some local authorities had looked at what was driving spending on expensive specialist provision and whether there were other ways they could use their money to manage children with high needs differently and reduce their use of costly specialist places. The Department said that it was seeing early signs that this “safety valve programme” was helping to bring deficits down and that it had funding to scale up the programme.54 53 Qq 102, 116 54 Qq 123, 135 Financial sustainability of schools in England 15