§ Lord Rixasked Her Majesty's Government:
To assist statementing and meeting special educational needs, whether they will commend to local education authorities the Oxfordshire Local Education Authority approach to monitoring support for children with special educational needs.[HL1953]
§ The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Department for Education and Skills (Baroness Ashton of Upholland)We are always pleased to hear about interesting arrangements for monitoring the support of children with special educational needs, and I am grateful to the noble Lord for bringing Oxfordshire's work to our attention. It is, however, ultimately up to individual authorities to develop their own systems for monitoring the effectiveness of the support provided for children with special educational needs in their areas in the light of local needs and circumstances. They may of course want to approach other successful authorities for information and advice in doing so. The Government welcome and encourage the sharing of practice in this way, rather than commending one particular approach as a model, given differing local circumstances.
Guidance on approaches to the distribution of resources for meeting the needs of children with special educational needs is given in The Distribution of Resources to Support Inclusion, which was published by the Department for Education and Skills in November 2001. The network of 11 special educational needs regional partnerships brings together local education authorities, health and social services and voluntary agencies to share knowledge and expertise. The partnerships have focused on effective practice on monitoring and accountability for 218WA SEN. Monitoring and accountability will also be developed further as part of the special educational needs action programme, to be published later this year.