CHILDREN who need extra help for their special educational needs are getting a quicker service from England’s local authorities. A report by the Audit Commission shows a 19 per cent improvement in the time English councils take to prepare draft statements of SEN - the legally-binding documents that set out the additional support pupis should receive.
However, parents and pupils still face a lottery over the time it takes - depending on where they live. While five authorities prepared all their draft statements within 18 weeks of the parents’ original request, the slowest authorities completed only 10 per cent of statements within that timescale.
