Finding Special Educational Needs Data

There is no single page on GOV.UK which contains links to all relevant statistics on special educational needs. The main SEN statistics page is missing a direct link to tribunals and only has partial data on school absence and exclusion. The presentation of data became more fragmented in 2015.

UPDATE SEPTEMBER 25TH  2016: ANALYSIS AND SUMMARY OF DATA SOURCES SEPTEMBER 2016  HAS NOW BEEN ADDED TO the main SEN statistics page providing more information about tribunals and exclusions (although these are still not directly linked from the main page. The main news item about tribunals is that April to June 2016 figures were 29% up on the same period last year.

Summary 

There is no single page on GOV.UK which contains links to all relevant statistics on special educational needs. The main SEN statistics page is missing a direct link to tribunals and only has partial data on school absence and exclusion.  It is hard to grasp the underlying logic of this arrangement.  As of September 25th 2016 the page continues to say that the last update was July 20th even though material was still being added on September 23rd. 

Local Authorities SEND Information 

The main SEN statistics page does have a substantial amount of local authority level information. The annual round-up is now published in May and the latest is here

https://www.gov.uk/government/statistics/statements-of-sen-and-ehc-plans-england-2016 (SFR 17).

These are the contents of SFR 17

I used SFR 17 as the basis for looking at  education other than at school

Schools SEND Information

The main SEN statistics page also has a link to collected SEN statistics from the Schools Census released in July.

Here is 2016 (SFR 29) https://www.gov.uk/government/statistics/special-educational-needs-in-england-january-2016 

Here are the contents of SFR 29 National Tables

Added to this are Local authority tables

Plus “additional tables”

‘Analysis’

The main SEN statistics page has a link to SEN Absence and Exclusions Additional Analysis and SEN Analysis and Summary of Data Sources

SEN Absence and Exclusions Additional Analysis is useful up to a point, but since it was published in January, the statistics are a year behind and there is no link on the main SEN statistics page to more recent data.

When I first wrote this blog post in August 2016 the latest version of  SEN Analysis and Summary of Data Sources had come out in May, 2 months before annual publication of major SEND data in July, so some  information (eg exclusions) related to the previous year.

An updated version of SEN Analysis and Summary of Data Sources was published on September 23rd 2016 which is now linked from the main SEN statistics page

SEN Analysis and Summary of Data Sources  does at least provide a link to the latest statistics about school attendance and absence rates (although there is no direct link from the main SEN statistics page)

 

Pupil Absence 

Pupil absence statistics   have their own page on GOV.UK.  Annual figures are published in the Spring.

This is the 2016 page

School Exclusion 

The annual statistics on school exclusions are published in July. This means that up to date statistics about school exclusions AREN’T directly linked from  the main SEN statistics page although the latest  SEN Analysis and Summary of Data Sources published on September 23rd 2016 and now linked from the main SEN statistics page does provide information on 2014-15 exclusions by SEN.

Annual data about school exclusion can be found here

https://www.gov.uk/government/collections/statistics-exclusions

This is  the latest information

Here is the index

SEN Tribunals 

The SEN Analysis and Summary of Data Sources  (updated in September 2016) and linked from the main SEN statistics page  only has one page about tribunals (Although SEN mediation statistics are included in SFR 17)

 

For the FULL statistics on SEN appeals and tribunals you have to go to the Ministry of Justice DECEMBER Tribunal Statistics  which include annual SEND tables. For some reason these are NOT linked from the main SEN statistics page

This is the Index for the SEND Annual Tables

2015 SEND Data Change 

Up to 2014 ALL this SEND information was published together including tables for SEND tribunal appeals over the whole year.

It is more tricky to scrutinise changes over time now that the presentation of statistics has become fragmented. I will be offering tips on how to deal with this in a separate blog post

Local Authorities Comparative Data

 There are several websites which enable you to set up comparisons between local authorities. 

The  Local Government Association database   contains a variety of SEND data items which enables you to drill down in your local authority and compare performance data on special educational needs from different local authorities (eg all LAs, neighbouring LAs, similar LAs)

For each local authority there are other LAs with similar characteristics, known as statistical neighbours. Using the Local Authority Interactive Tool, local authorities can be compared against statistical neighbours.

I will be writing more about LG Inform and LAIT in a separate blog post

 

 

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