Special Educational Needs

The Statutory Assessment Team gets involved from the point at which statutory assessment is requested (by school, parents/carers or outside agencies) to issuing a statement of SEN, and then maintaining statements. It provides the following services:

• manages and co-ordinates the SEN statutory assessment procedures;
• produces and maintains statements of SEN;
• decides placement of children with statements and is therefore key in achieving departmental targets on inclusion of children with statements in mainstream schools
• attends Annual Review Meetings for children with statements;
• provides advice to schools, parents/carers on statutory assessment and statement procedures;
• represents the local authority (LA) at Disagreement Resolution meetings and SEN and Disability Tribunal hearings;
• works closely with other services within Manchester Education Partnership;
• works closely with Children's Services and Health on placements of children in out-of-city schools;
• manages the LA's SEN budgets; and
• chairs and services the SEN Panel, which determines requests for statutory assessment and decides the level of additional funding to be allocated to individual pupils with a new statement who are placed in mainstream schools.

Key facts and figures

• The Service maintains 2,400 statements.
• Each Casework Officer has a caseload of about 500 statements.
• The Service is responsible for managing large budgets, like out-of-city placements, Special Educational Needs funding for pupils with statements, payments to other LAs, and the Hospital Schools Budget.