SWINDON Borough Council is set to miss a legal deadline to provide a new statement of need for SEN pupils by three months.

The Department for Education required all local authorities to transfer SEN pupils from having a statement of special educational needs onto the legally binding Education, Health, and Care Plan (EHCP) by April 1.

A Children’s Health, Social care and Education Scrutiny Committee on Wednesday discussed the progress made. By the end of March, 112 pupils still needed a new statement as the deadline passed and 46 remain out of a total of approximately 1854 pupils.

The expectation is that all 1,800 SEND pupils covered by the council will be transferred by the end of July.

A report for the committee said there were several factors for the delay. “Part of the reason for the deadline being missed was due to staff leaving for other roles, high levels of staff sickness, the high number relative to other local authorities of statements that had to be transferred and also the timings of annual reviews in schools,” it said.

Swindon has a relatively high proportion of SEND children. Approximately 3.7 per cent of children have EHCPs against the national average of 2.8 per cent and 13.3 per cent of children are identified as needing SEN support against a national average of 11.6 per cent.