Statutory assessment of special educational needs
August 2014
Provision for special educational needs
From 1 September 2014, the Children and Families Act 2014 will introduce changes to the
legislation affecting how children and young people’s special educational needs are met.
There are new requirements for education, health and social care services to work more
closely together. Alongside this, the services which are universally available to children and
families will be set out in a Local Offer http://www.essex.gov.uk/Local-offer
Significantly, the former system of issuing statements of special educational needs for
children with complex or severe needs will be replaced by a new assessment process which
will lead (for some children) to an Education, Health and Care plan (EHCP). EHCPs can be
issued between the ages of 0-25. An EHCP is a legal document which will have similar
statutory power to a statement of special educational needs, but which will also describe a
child or young person’s health and care needs where these are significant.
At school, most children will make progress with the support of their class teacher through
the school’s arrangements known as School Support. School governing bodies are required
to publish detailed information about their arrangements for identifying, assessing and
making provision for pupils with SEN. This must be school-specific and describe a school’s
arrangements for providing a graduated response to children’s SEN. This is known as the
School Offer.
For the small number of children with complex/severe needs who do not make enough
progress despite intervention from the school, it may be necessary for a statutory
assessment of the child’s special educational needs to be undertaken by the Statutory
Assessment Service.
Statutory assessment
All requests for a statutory assessment received from 1 September 2014 must be
considered under the new legislation.
The Statutory Assessment Service is responsible for considering requests for statutory
assessment. You can contact the Statutory Assessment Service office covering your home
address at
Mid
Tel: 0300 003 4131
Covering the areas of
East
Tel: 0300 0031866
Covering the areas of
Braintree
Chelmsford
Halstead
Maldon
Colchester
Tendring
South Tel: 033301 34736
Covering the areas of
West
Tel: 0333 0139911
Covering the areas of
Basildon
Billericay
Brentwood
Castle Point
Rochford
Wickford
Epping
Harlow
Uttlesford
The starting point will be to consider whether a child or young person’s special educational
needs can be met through the Local Offer. We expect that most children or young people
will have their needs met this way, and that this will be a quicker and less bureaucratic
process.
In Essex, to support this, we have developed a person-centred approach as encouraged by
the new SEND Code of Practice: we call this One Planning. You can read the SEND Code of
Practice at https://www.gov.uk/SENDCodeofPractice2014.You can find out more about One
Planning at http://www.essex.gov.uk/Local-offer .
The Essex criteria for undertaking a statutory assessment can be found here
Criteria for EHCP
assessment V1 August 2014.pdf
When we receive a request for a statutory assessment we will need to collect and collate a
range of information about your child which might include:
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A copy of the child’s One Plan (where this is in place)
Detailed information about the action taken, and the support already given by the
school
Information about the child’s health or medical history where relevant
Information about any other difficulties the child may have
Other assessment information that is already available, such as from a specialist
advisory teacher or an educational psychologist
Views of the parent/carers and the child
Information from other professionals involved with your child
In most cases, we do expect that much of this information will already be available as a
result of good One Planning which might, for example, have been led by your child’s school.
We hope that this will help to speed up the process so that parents do not have to wait too
long for an answer. We expect to deal with requests for assessment within four to six
weeks.
If an assessment goes ahead, the whole process must usually be completed within twenty
weeks. Parents/carers and all involved professionals will be closely involved in drawing up
EHCPs where these are needed.
Transition arrangements
Between 1 September 2014 and 1 April 2018 transition arrangements will be in place to help
manage the move to the new system. Children and young people who already have
statements of special educational needs will retain their statement until a conversion
process is completed. The Local Authority is writing directly to the parents of the children
and young people concerned. The transfer arrangements for children and young people are
in the Essex County Council Guidance on transition to the new 0 to 25 special educational
needs and disability system which can be found below:
Essex_Transition_Pla
n 0-25.docx
Parent Partnership Service
The Parent Partnership Service is available to offer advice and support in relation to SEN
processes for children and young people. Support is also available from Independent
Supporters.
http://www.essex.gov.uk/Education-Schools/Schools/Special-EducationNeeds/Pages/Parent-Partnership-Service.aspx
Children and young people attending pre-school or FE college provision
In broad terms, the above arrangements will also apply to children and young people
attending pre-school or FE college provision. If this applies to you, please contact your
Statutory Assessment Service office as above for more information.