Source · Select Committees · Education Committee
Recommendation 20
20
Deferred
Paragraph: 106
Take greater care when reporting SEND attendance statistics to avoid unhelpful comparisons.
Recommendation
Absence rates in special schools have always been significantly higher than in mainstream educational settings. We understand the SEND cohort have higher absences for legitimate and unavoidable reasons, thus making comparisons with other cohorts difficult. We recommend the Department take greater care when reporting these statistics to avoid unhelpful comparisons.
Government Response Summary
The government's response detailed a new burdens assessment undertaken in Spring 2022, which is unrelated to the recommendation about taking greater care when reporting special school attendance statistics.
Paragraph Reference:
106
Government Response
Deferred
HM Government
Deferred
21. The Government undertook a full new burdens assessment in Spring 2022 which is publicly available on gov.uk. The assessment was undertaken with the Association of Government response 5 Directors of Childrens Services (ADCS), Local Government Association (LGA) and the Department for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities. It was based on the available evidence at the time from those local authorities already delivering the expectations in the guidance and who were willing to share financial data with the Department. It showed that those local authorities (which varied in size and type) were doing so with or below the national average number of local authority staff per pupil (one member of staff per 5,490 pupils).