§ Mr. Ashleyasked the Secretary of State for Education and Science if she will list the local education authorities who have notified her Department that they have adopted the policy advocated in her Department's circular 2/75.
§ Miss Margaret JacksonThe purpose of circular 2/75 was to clarify existing procedures for the discovery, diagnosis and assessment of children's special educational needs, rather than to advocate new ones.
The circular was innovative in one respect. It invited authorities to use, experimentally, a new form…SE4…which provides for a descriptive statement of 55W a child's educational needs. The circular indicated—Appendix B, paragraph 7 —that authorities' experience with the form would be helpful to the Warnock Committee in looking at the system of statutory categories of handicap and the possibility of its replacement by a less formal descriptive procedure. Few authorities have in fact written to the Department about the use of the form but the Warnock Committee has received evidence and is addressing itself to the question. If the committee recommended changes in this area, these would entail legislation. Circular 2/75, which is based upon the present system, would then become obsolete.
§ Mr. Ashleyasked the Secretary of State for Education and Science if the Committee of Inquiry into Special Education is considering the issue of interim reports on urgent problems.
§ Miss Margaret JacksonThe Warnock Committee has planned its work throughout as composite study leading to a single report early next year. It would not at this stage appear practicable to reorganise the programme to allow for the production of interim reports —although this is a matter entirely within the discretion of the committee.