Steve McCabe – 2014 Parliamentary Question to the Department for Education

The below Parliamentary question was asked by Steve McCabe on 2015-01-15.

To ask the Secretary of State for Education, whether her Department has a mechanism in place to be notified of instances when a local authority does not issue a final statement of special educational needs within the statutory time limit of 26 weeks.

Mr Edward Timpson

Data is collected annually from all local authorities on the numbers of final statements issued for children with special educational needs (SEN).

Guidance to local authorities on the process and timescales for carrying out statutory SEN assessments and issuing final statements of SEN is provided in the 2001 ‘Special Educational Needs Code of Practice’ and the statutory timescales are also set out in ‘The Education (Special Educational Needs) (England) (Consolidation) Regulations 2001’.