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Improving Our Schools: Responses to the Riddell Report

A: General

In September 1999 Sam Galbraith, Minister for Children and Education launched the consultation exercise on the Riddell Report into the education of children with severe low incidence disabilities. The Committee's report contained 22 recommendations relating to effective provision for children with severe low incidence disabilities and, more generally, to children with special educational needs. The Minister welcomed the Committee's report and invited comments on the report's recommendations. Scottish Ministers are grateful for the detailed comments submitted and have given careful consideration to the points raised.

Around 120 individuals and organisations submitted responses during the consultation exercise. These are listed at Annex A. Over half the responses came from local authorities, schools and education interest groups, and health or social work interests. The remainder came from parents and school boards, voluntary organisations, and individuals with an interest in SEN issues.

A large majority of respondents strongly welcomed the report's recommendations and the announcements contained in the Ministerial response document, Improving Our Schools - Special Educational Needs. In particular, there was a broad welcome for the announcement of a new national SEN Advisory Forum; increased resources for inclusion, and a review of therapy services. Respondents welcomed recommendations in areas, such as the legislative framework and learning support, and encouraged Ministers to go further than the position set out in their response document. Recommendations on the length of the school week in special schools and re-allocation of grant-aid to seven special schools were welcomed by a majority of respondents. In both instances, however, people considered that there was a need for appropriate safeguards when introducing changes to existing arrangements.

A number of general concerns were expressed. Some respondents thought that the Committee had lost its focus on the small number of children with severe low incidence disabilities; others were unhappy with the very term "severe low incidence disabilities" and suggested that the Committee had been too dominated by a "medical needs" model. Others commented that consultation should have taken place on the Riddell Report before Ministers announced any action.

Statistical Information

A few respondents questioned the statistics in the Committee's report. Aberdeen City Council in particular was unhappy with the use of statistics which misrepresented the true picture of the inclusive nature of their policies. The Committee faced a number of difficulties when assessing the number and location of pupils likely to meet a definition of "severe low incidence disabilities." This term has no statutory basis and is not one on which statistics are collected. The Committee therefore depended on statistics extrapolated from the annual School Census returns. The nature of these returns is such that it is not always possible to identify the funding authorities for some pupils and in these cases assumptions were therefore made that the authority in whose area pupils received their school education was also the funding authority. In other cases pupils attending independent schools in an authority's area were sometimes included as a percentage of that authority's school population.

The report's statistical tables therefore should be used with extreme caution and can only be considered as broadly illustrative of the picture across Scotland. In the case of Aberdeen City Council it should be made clear that the figures considerably overstate the number of pupils with Records of Needs and "severe low incidence disabilities". Aberdeen City Council's commitment to implementing inclusive policies is commented on in the section on the Inclusion Programme in the Scottish Executive's SEN Programme of Action.

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