Special Needs (Hansard, 12 April 2000)

§ Jacqui Smith

The 11 Special Education Needs Regional Co-ordination Projects are formed as follows:

North East Redcar and Cleveland, Durham, Northumberland, Newcastle upon Tyne, North Tyneside, South Tyneside, Gateshead, Sunderland, Darlington, Hartlepool, Stockton-on-Tees and Middlesbrough.

East of England Hertfordshire, Bedfordshire, Essex, Suffolk, Cambridgeshire, Luton, Norfolk, Southend-on-Sea, Peterborough and Thurrock.

London All 33 London boroughs.

Merseyside St. Helens, Halton, Liverpool, Knowsley, Sefton and Wirral.

South West Devon, Cornwall, North Somerset, City of Bristol, South Gloucestershire, Plymouth, Torbay, Somerset, Bath and North East Somerset, Gloucestershire, Swindon, Wiltshire, Bournemouth, Dorset, Poole and Isles of Scilly.

West Midlands Coventry, Dudley, Sandwell, Solihull, Wolverhampton, Warwickshire, Walsall, Telford and Wrekin, Birmingham, Staffordshire, Stoke on Trent, Worcestershire, Shropshire and Herefordshire.

North West Lancashire, Blackpool, Blackburn with Darwin, Wigan, Bolton, Bury, Rochdale, Oldham, Tameside, Stockport, Manchester, Trafford, Salford, Warrington, Cheshire and Cumbria.

South East Kent, Brighton and Hove, East Sussex, Medway, Surrey and West Sussex.

South Central Hampshire, Bracknell Forest, Buckinghamshire, Isle of Wight, Milton Keynes, Oxfordshire, Portsmouth, Reading, Slough, Southampton, West Berkshire and Windsor and Maidenhead.

East Midlands Northamptonshire, Derby, Derbyshire, Leicester, Leicestershire, Lincolnshire, Nottingham, Nottinghamshire and Rutland.

Yorkshire and the Humber Kirklees, Barnsley, Bradford, Calderdale, Doncaster, East Riding of Yorkshire, City of Kingston upon Hull, Leeds, North East Lincolnshire, North Lincolnshire, North Yorkshire, Rotherham, Sheffield, Wakefield and York.

Each Project is bringing together local education authorities, private and voluntary organisations with relevant interests, health and social services, and training providers. The Department for Education and Employment is providing almost £1 million this year to support the network.

Each Project has determined its own focus and priorities to ensure that they address issues of concern within their region. The focus of the projects ranges from providing for pupils with low incidence disabilities to strategic planning to support inclusion. Early evidence shows that these projects will help to improve and to make more coherent services for children with special educational needs or disabilities.

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A formal evaluation programme is in place. Early findings should be available in late summer. We also plan to publish a first set of good practice case studies during the autumn term.