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Special Needs London 2008 17th & 18th October 2008 Business Design Centre, London

Home > Topical Issues > Parliamentary

Parliamentary

The House of Commons Education and Skills Committee have launched an inquiry into Special Educational Needs:separation of assessment of need from funding of provision

In its report on Special Educational Needs published in July 2006, the Education and Skills Committee recommended that assessment of need and funding of provision should no longer be carried out by the same body:

“There is an inbuilt conflict of interest in that it is the duty of the local authority both to assess the needs of the child and to arrange provision to meet those needs, and all within a limited resource. The link must be broken between assessment and funding of provision”. (Paragraph 99)

In its response the DfES rejected this recommendation, implying that the Committee had suggested that a new agency be created to make assessments (which it had not) or that there was no alternative to such an agency taking responsibility if local authorities were no longer to make assessments. It also made a series of other criticisms of the Committee’s recommendation, saying that to take such a decision would be “a leap in the dark and would endanger the position of parents and children with special educational needs”.

The Committee does not accept that separation of assessment and funding would inevitably require the establishment of a new agency or quango; that it would undermine the basis of the current statementing system;  or that it would necessarily reduce local accountability for decisions, as the Government claims.

In an exchange between the Chairman of the Committee and the Minister of State for Schools during an Opposition debate on SEN on 30 January this year, the Minister agreed that if the Committee put forward proposals on the practicalities of implementing the separation of assessment from funding then he would reconsider the matter. The Committee has therefore decided to examine this specific issue once again.

On the presumption that local authorities would continue to fund special needs provision, the Committee is seeking views on the following issues in particular:

·       How might assessment of special educational needs be undertaken other than by the relevant local authority without the establishment of a new separate agency for the purpose?

·       How might local accountability for assessment be maintained if the local authority does not directly undertake the assessment?

·       What other issues need to be addressed in order to make the separation of assessment and provision effective?

·       What models from other countries could usefully be drawn on to demonstrate how separation of assessment and funding for special educational needs might be achieved?

Submissions should arrive no later than noon on Monday 25 June 2007.  The Committee is not intending to take oral evidence on this subject.

A guide for written submissions to the Committee may be found on the parliamentary website at:

 http://www.parliament.uk/documents/upload/witnessguide.pdf. Submissions should include at the beginning a short paragraph or set of bullet points setting out the main issues addressed in the memorandum.

A copy of the submission should be sent by e-mail to edskillscom@parliament.uk with an additional paper copy to:

Education and Skills Select Committee, House of Commons, 7 Millbank, London SW1P 3JA