Special Educational Needs Debate
10 Jul 2001
Ms Diane Abbott (Hackney, North and Stoke Newington): I confirm that it can be an enormous struggle to get children statemented. Until recently, my LEA was dominated by Labour. Parents who do not know their rights and who do not contact their Member of Parliament have no hope of securing a statement for a child. Giving LEAs more room to stall and prevaricate will make the problem much worse for some of the most vulnerable children in the system.Mr. Hayes: The hon. Lady makes a valid point. There are two problems: some LEAs are inefficient when it comes to statementing, and some are resistant to issuing statements at all. An analysis of the number of children statemented by LEAs, and of the time that that process takes, shows that the performance of LEAs is enormously variable across the country. There is no consistency in the approach of LEAs to the matter of statementing, which is very much left to local choice and judgment. In some cases, that judgment is not all that it might be. Again, I make no party-political point when I say that, as the LEAs to which I refer are run by all parties.
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