Senior DfES official Stephen Dance wrote to Buckinghamshire CountyCouncil last week after it invited local residents to say which areas ofexpenditure they would be happy to see cut back. One of the council'ssuggestions for cutbacks had been "reduced capacity for providingstatements for children with special educational needs".
Dance's letter suggests that such action could be in breach of acouncil's legal responsibilities towards children with specialeducational needs.
It reads: "In the department's view, the wording used in theconsultation document was unfortunate as it gave the impression that theauthority proposed to reduce its ability to make and maintain statementswithout any compensating action to meet individual needs."
The council has been resent a DfES letter setting out its legal dutiesto provide help for children with special educational needs. The lettermakes it clear that councils must not operate blanket policies ofrefusing to assess particular groups of children who have specialeducational needs, but must consider children's needs individually andon their merits.
But Buckinghamshire has escaped further action after a recent fullmeeting of the council ruled there would be no cuts in staffing in itsspecial educational services after all.
John Wright, chief executive of the Independent Panel for SpecialEducation Advice, said the Government's intervention in the case servedas a warning to any council tempted to follow a similar course ofaction.
"We are pleased with this outcome and with the speed of the DfES'saction," he said. "We will be writing to Buckinghamshire asking them toinvestigate how this potentially misleading error came to be made."
Janet Sparrow, head of special educational needs at BuckinghamshireCouncil, claimed that the proposals did not signal an intention toreduce the number of special educational needs statements made ormaintained as a result of budget planning.
She said the proposed cut would have made one senior officer dealingwith special educational needs matters redundant but insisted therewould have been no reduction in the number of staff directly involved inthe process of making and maintaining statements.
