Complaint to the Secretary of State against Wirral LEA for a blanket policy not to specify

9 November 2001

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IPSEA has believed for a number of years that the requirement for a Statement to set out clearly how much help a child should receive should be mandatory, and in law - not advisory, and in the Code. We still believe this.

The DfES has an opportunity to prove us wrong by acting promptly and firmly when, from now on, they receive evidence that an LEA is operating a blanket policy of non-quantification.

IPSEA has submitted a complaint of exactly this, to the Secretary of State, with regard to a policy operated by Wirral LEA since April of this year. We are counting the days, weeks, months it will take the DfES to instruct Wirral that this is a 'blanket policy' which they must drop immediately.

The complaint

The Secretary of State for Education
DfES
Sanctuary Buildings
Great Smith Street
London SW1P 3BT

October 30th 2001

Dear Secretary of State,

Formal complaint against the Metropolitan Borough of Wirral as a Local Education Authority under s497 EA1996

I am writing to make a formal complaint against the above Authority for their failure to fulfil their duty under s324(3)(b) EA1996 to 'specify the special educational provision' in Statements of Special Educational Needs made and maintained by them.

I am enclosing a copy of a policy document produced by MB Wirral and implemented as from April 2001. You will see from the first paragraph that the LEA, as a policy, no longer specifies learning support assistance time in Statements of Special Educational Needs.

The Secretary of State will be aware of the LEA's legal duty under the Act and of the judgements in:

1. L v Clarke and Somerset County Council (1998) with regard to the need for a statement to leave no room for doubt as to what is intended; and
2. C v SENT & LB Greenwich (1999) with regard to the inadmissibility of delegating responsibility for 'determining' provision to 'others').

I would hope that the policy document will 'satisfy' you, in terms of s497(1), that the LEA are failing to discharge their legal duty, and that there will be no need for the delay which additional investigation would cause before issuing a direction to the Authority under s497(1)(b).

Yours faithfully,

John Wright
for IPSEA

Quotation from the policy document

Metropolitan Borough of Wirral

Support for pupils with statements in mainstream schools

Many children with physical or medical impairments, Asperger's Syndrome and other related difficulties are supported by a support assistant or learning support assistant. Currently the time of these assistants is specified by the Authority on the children's Statements giving schools little flexibility in terms of the deployment of the resource for individual children. In order to enable schools to manage the way in which they meet these children's special needs in the most appropriate way, with effect from 1st April 2001, the Authority will no longer specify the level of support assistance in terms of time, but will specify a number of units which have a monetary value. Thus instead of specifying a 0.5 support assistant, the Authority will allocate 5 units each worth £680 i.e. the Authority will credit the school with £3,400, the average cost of a 0.5 support assistant; the school's duty will be to meet the objectives on the child's Statement and the school will therefore determine how best to support the pupil.

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