Northern Ireland

Special needs delays 'too high'

EA Chief Executive Sara Long
EA Chief Executive Sara Long EA Chief Executive Sara Long

THE number of children facing lengthy delays in receiving statements of special educational needs remains "too high" but progress is being made, an assembly committee has heard.

Officials from the Education Authority (EA) appeared before the cross-party education committee yesterday.

They had appeared earlier this year to discuss the findings of an internal audit that revealed some children endured delays of two years before receiving a statement.

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Statements that detail the additional help young people need should be issued within 26 weeks.

The audit found that more than 1,000 children waited considerably longer.

The EA's investigation into how it handled the assessment and statementing process took place between October 2019 and January 2020.

It found "unnecessary and undue delays" in the operation of the process across all special educational needs teams.

About 85 per cent of more than 1,300 statements examined had not been completed within the recommended 26 weeks. The average time the EA took to complete each statement in 2018/19 was 40 weeks.

The education committee yesterday received an update from EA Chief Executive Sara Long.

She told members that "progress is being made" and there had been improvements in "reducing the number of children waiting the longest time for completion of statutory assessment".

At the end of November 2019, 1,070 of all open cases “were delayed beyond the 26 week statutory framework” and that number had fallen to 597 in June.

Ms Long added that of those, there was an 82 per cent reduction in the number of young people waiting more than 60 weeks, and a 61 per cent reduction in those waiting 40 of longer.

"The figures are still too high but are beginning to move in the right direction," Ms Long said.

Earlier, education minister Peter Weir told members that contingency plans to reopen schools might change if the number of Covid-19 cases continues to decline.

Mr Weir said the principal issue of returning to full-time education was striking a balance between carrying out preparation work before September against "events overtaking us in a positive way".

Children in `key cohorts' of Years 7, 12 and 14 will be welcomed back on August 24, one week earlier than usual. The social distancing measure would be reduced from two to one metre.

"If things move the way they are moving we may be in a different environment come August and September and may have to adjust again," Mr Weir said.

He said the current guidance is based on advice from practitioners and is based on getting the “maximum number of children” back to school.

"The best possible solution is to have children face-to-face within a classroom environment," he added.