AQW 7477/22-27

Mr Nick Mathison
Alliance Party
Strangford

Tabled Date: 26/02/2024
Answered On Date: 22/03/2024
Priority Written: No

Question:
To ask the Minister of Education (i) how many applications for a statement of special educational needs exceeded the 26 week statutory time limit; (ii) how long these assessments took; and (iii) the reasons for delay, for each year since 2020.

Answer:

In answer to part (i) and part (ii) of your question, the Education Authority (EA) has advised that as of 29 February 2024:

Year Ending	Number of Statements Over 26 Weeks for Completion	Number of Statements Between 27-40 Weeks for Completion	Number of Statements Over 40 weeks for Completion
31 March 2020	583	294	314
31 March 2021	0	0	0
31 March 2022	39	39	1
31 March 2023	130	114	22
Year to Date 29 February 2024	121	77	43

The EA has advised that any reasons for delay that would sit outside of noted ‘statutory exceptions’ are not available and would require manual checking of each file.

Any delays within the statutory process are wholly unacceptable. It is for this reason that there is a dedicated workstream on statementing under the End to End (E2E) Review of Special Educational Needs (SEN) to ensure that the department understands any reason for delay and to seek out early actions for improvement of this process for children, young people and their families.