DfEE Green Paper (22/10/1997)

home

SEN articles & info

catalogue

downloads

reports : DFEE Green Paper

3 Practical support: the framework for SEN provision

Statements

10. For children with complex needs, statements fulfil three main functions. They are used:

to define a child's needs;
to specify provision to meet those needs; and
to co-ordinate this provision by saying who will do what.

11. For several reasons, the statement has often come to be seen as central to SEN provision. When the Code was introduced, it was envisaged that the needs of the great majority of children with SEN should be met effectively under its school-based stages, and that only in a minority of cases, perhaps the 2% of children envisaged by the Warnock Report in 1978, would the LEA need to carry out a statutory assessment of SEN and make a statement. But there has been a steep increase in recent years, so that 233,000 pupils (almost 3%) now have statements.

The number of pupils with statements 1991 - 1997

1991 - 153,228
1992 - 160,759
1993 - 178,029
1994 - 194,541
1995 - 211,307
1996 - 227,324
1997 - 232,995

The growth has been most marked in mainstream primary and secondary schools, where numbers of pupils with statements more than doubled from 62,000 in January 1991 to 134,000 in January 1997.

12. The recent rapid increase in the number of statements has unwelcome effects:

the process for assessing pupils and issuing statements is lengthy and expensive, and increased numbers put greater pressure on it;
resources that could be used to give practical support to pupils are being diverted into procedures;
resources allocated to those with statements are diverted away from the majority of children with SEN but without statements;
statements can act as barriers to full inclusion of pupils with SEN. They can limit schools' flexibility; where mainstream classes include several pupils with statements, the combined effect of the individual statements each specifying particular special educational provision can hinder effective use of support across the whole class.

13. The legal framework and funding practice combine to emphasise the difference between having and not having a statement, and add to the pressure on parents and schools to seek a statutory assessment. At the same time LEAs, acutely conscious of sharply rising SEN budgets and, in some cases, seeking to provide stronger support in the earlier stages of the Code of Practice, have sought ways of restricting the rise in the number of statements. There is potential for mistrust and conflict in an area where trust and co-operation are essential.

14. We acknowledge the necessary role currently played by multi-agency assessments and statements in ensuring that the needs of children with the most significant and complex SEN are fully considered, and appropriate provision determined. At present we do not intend to amend the central place of statements in law. But we believe that current practice gives them excessive prominence. We are committed to the principle that the needs of the great majority of children who have SEN should be met effectively by mainstream schools, with support where necessary but without the need for statutory intervention by LEAs.

15. Moreover, we want to look at the way statements work for those children who need them. In the light of the response to this Green Paper, we will consider:

whether we should define national criteria for statements or set out expectations for numbers of statements (see paragraphs 16-19);
whether the content of statements is appropriate (see paragraphs 20-21);
how to ensure that annual reviews of statements are used for a fundamental examination of the child's progress (see paragraph 22);
how to ensure that the new framework for funding under local management of schools (LMS) supports the developments we seek (see Appendix 2); and
how to ensure that statutory assessments are completed within the set timescales (see paragraph 23).

In the longer term we will consider whether statements in their present form are the best way of carrying out the functions described in paragraph 10 above, or whether - while maintaining existing safeguards - these might be better achieved by some alternative means.

31/08/2000