[holding answer 6 January 2010]: The requested information is not collected centrally by the Department. However, during the 2009-10 financial year local authorities in England budgeted net expenditure of over £5.2 billion for the provision of education for children with special educational needs. It is not possible to identify how much of this £5.2 billion was for the total cost of educating children with special educational needs in residential special schools as the data are not collected in that way.