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Planning to Improve Access to Education for Pupils with Disabilities
Guidance on Preparing Accessibility Strategies

Chapter 5 - Monitoring, Evaluation and Enforcement

Monitoring and Evaluation

154. Although clearly all responsible bodies will have different priorities and take individual approaches to planning, the Scottish Executive wishes to ensure that progress is made in all schools and to maintain an overview of all accessibility strategies.

155. In order to do this, every responsible body must send a copy of their accessibility strategy (by e-mail or post) to the Scottish Executive (contact details are in Annex B) when it is finalised. Progress reports ²¹ on local authorities' Improvement Plans should be provided to the Scottish Executive every year, which will show what progress has been made in implementing accessibility strategies (as well as other National Priorities initiatives). The Progress report will also show how the authority is performing against the National Priorities indicators and targets. All accessibility strategies (not just those for local authorities), except the initial ones, should include a brief evaluation of what has been achieved as a result of the previous strategy.

156. Checking progress made in developing strategies at regular intervals will allow the Scottish Executive to evaluate how successful overall the implementation of accessibility strategies has been. If there are areas which Scottish Ministers feel are not being tackled sufficiently or where progress has been too slow, they may issue further guidance to encourage progress. In addition, any specific funding provided to local authorities for inclusion and accessibility purposes will be monitored by the Scottish Executive. However, it is important to emphasise that the Scottish Executive will not be "approving" accessibility strategies. Instead, officials will use strategies to identify good practice and use these examples of good practice to advise other responsible bodies.

Inspections

157. In their inspections of schools and education authorities, Her Majesty's Inspectorate of Education (HMIE) may ask to see the accessibility strategy and how it is being implemented, depending on the nature of the inspection. How good is our school?²² includes a number of quality indicators which may be used by inspectors in assessing progress which has been made in improving access in a school, especially the following:

• Indicator 3.4 - Meeting pupils' needs, which will look at -
  • choice of tasks, activities and resources;
  • provision for pupils with differing abilities and aptitudes;
  • identification of learning needs.
• Indicator 4.5 - Learning Support, which looks at -
  • programmes tsupport pupils' learning;
  • pupils' progress and attainment;
  • implementation of the role of learning support.
• Indicator 4.6 - Implementation of legislation relating tspecial educational needs and disabilities, which looks at -
  • knowledge and understanding of legislation and related procedures;
  • meeting the requirements of legislation;
  • procedures for implementing the legislation.
• Indicator 4.7 - Placement of pupils with special educational needs and disabilities, which looks at -
  • processes for placements of pupils with special educational needs and disabilities intboth provision and classes.
• Indicator 5.3 - Equality and fairness, which looks at -
  • sense of equality and fairness;
  • ensuring equality and fairness.
• Indicator 6.2 - Provision of resources, which looks at -
  • sufficiency of available finance;
  • sufficiency, range and suitability of resources.
• Indicator 6.1 - Accommodation and facilities, which looks at -
  • sufficiency, range and appropriateness;
  • arrangements tensure health and safety.
• And, in the case primarily of independent, grant-aided and self-governing schools (for public sector schools, responsibility for planning lies with local authorities), Indicator 7.3 - Planning for improvement, which looks at -
  • the development plan;
  • action planning;
  • the impact of planning.

158. In the case of inspections of education authorities and independent, grantaided and self-governing schools, HMIE will evaluate how accessibility strategies have been developed, how they are being implemented, who has been involved and what improvements have been/will be achieved as a result. They might want to speak to relevant staff about this.

159. Inspections of education authorities comprise an assessment of how well the local authority performs its education functions in relation to the five key areas (strategic management, consultation and communication, operational management, resource and financial management, and performance monitoring and continual improvement) detailed in Quality Management in Education²³. Each of these key areas includes quality indicators, all of which are relevant in assessing the authorities' preparation and implementation of their accessibility strategies.

160. In the case of inspections of education authority schools, HMIE will take into account the involvement of school staff in developing and implementing authorities' accessibility strategies when evaluating the improvements that result from these strategies.

161. HMIE may make recommendations for improvements in accessibility strategies in their published reports. Such recommendations should be incorporated in revised accessibility strategies, or improvements made to the way strategies are being implemented or relevant stakeholders are involved.

Pre-school

162. The Regulation of Care (Scotland) Act 2001 established the Scottish Commission for the Regulation of Care (the Care Commission). From April 2002, the Care Commission will inspect pre-school provision against national care standards issued by Scottish Ministers. The care standards require providers to conform to all other relevant legislation on accommodation and facilities. The Care Commission's inspections of pre-school provision will be expected to include consideration of: the accessibility of the physical environment to pupils with disabilities; all aspects of children's experience and staff's relations with children, including, to some extent, children's learning; and their wider emotional, social and personal development.

163. All early years services delivering elements of both care and learning will be subject to an integrated inspection regime with inspection being undertaken by the Care Commission and HMIE. The inspections will aim to promote improvement in the quality of both education and care. In carrying out the integrated inspections, HMIE will have a particular focus on children's development and learning, including the delivery of and access to the curriculum (and the implementation of accessibility strategies). 164. It is worth noting here that inspections may also look at what steps have been taken to ensure that a school or local authority is complying with the new duties in Part IV of the DDA.

Ensuring Compliance

165. Whilst responsible bodies will have sufficient flexibility in drawing up and implementing their strategies to tackle their own local priorities, the Scottish Executive will consider any case where any individual or organisation makes a complaint (either formal or informal) to Ministers or officials that a responsible body is failing to comply with the legislation. Therefore, the Scottish Executive may request at any time that responsible bodies send in a copy of the up to date version of their strategy. They may also contact the responsible body to enquire about the complaint and to ask about progress made at that stage in implementing the accessibility strategy.

166. The aim of accessibility strategies is for responsible bodies to work closely together with all interested parties to plan for the future on the basis of consensus. If the relevant responsible body is found not to be complying with their duties, then the Scottish Ministers will intervene to require that it does so. Parents, children and organisations have no direct way of compelling a responsible body to implement a strategy or to make them alter the contents of a strategy. However, in such cases, the Scottish Executive will refer a person to the relevant responsible body to discuss their concerns with them.

167. In an individual case, if a child has been discriminated against on account of his or her disability, there may be a remedy under the DDA. Currently, such appeals will be heard in the Sheriff Court ²⁴.

168. In addition, where a child or young person has special educational needs, parents of that child or the young person may have a right of appeal to their local authority's Education Appeals Committee and then either Scottish Ministers or the Sheriff Court (in the case of placing requests) under the SEN Framework ²⁵. Scottish Ministers' proposals to change parents' and children's rights of appeal under the SEN Framework have been published in the document Assessing our Children's Educational Needs - The Way Forward? Scottish Executive response to the consultation²⁶ and these proposals are being developed further.

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