§ Dr. CableTo ask the Secretary of State for Education and Employment what assessment he has made of the pilot schemes supported through the Special Educational Needs Standards Fund Grant to develop work on the education of children with emotional, behavioural and psychiatric problems. [106757]
§ Jacqui SmithLocal education authorities in receipt of grant to support children with emotional and behavioural difficulties (EBD), under the Special Educational Needs Standards Fund for 1999–2000, must produce a progress report by June this year. Similar levels of information will be required on projects beginning in 2001–02. A major consideration in deciding whether to support each project continues to be that adequate mechanisms for monitoring and evaluating the work are built into the design.
We will be writing to LEAs before Easter with details of the type of additional information we will require. I am setting up an EBD Advisory Group, composed of practitioners and other experts in the field, and we will 311W draw on their expertise as to the most useful form this information might take. The information from LEAs will be used to inform decisions on SEN for the longer term. Where they report good practice we will seek to disseminate this widely through published case studies, conferences and through the Department's Special Educational Needs website.