The DfE’s response to the cancellation of ‘Children with special needs: an analysis – 2015’

During the course of the day, we noticed that the DfE’s ‘Children with special needs: an analysis – 2015’ statistics release hadn’t been published. Indeed, the DfE’s message on its website contained the following message:

‘Statistics release cancelled

From 2015, we shall cease the publication of ‘Children with special educational needs: an analysis’ in its current format. This change will mean that SEN data and associated commentary will no longer be collated from other source data; however, we shall replace this with a document signposting users to all relevant releases, with a cover note on date of releases, to enable them to find existing data easily in a timely manner on gov.uk.’

For more detail, see http://bit.ly/1MYh3wY

As a result of this, we spoke to a DfE press officer a few moments ago. He provided us with the following statement:

‘Ultimately, the publication itself hasn’t been cancelled. We’re changing the way that it’s published to make it a bit more user friendly and better organised really. So, it will be published there in due course and it will be regularly updated rather than published annually. So, it was slightly misleading what was originally on there, so we hope that that clears it up a little bit.’

We asked for a ballpark publication date, but he was unable to provide us with a firm figure. He did, however, assure us that he will keep us posted. In turn, we will let you know as soon as we have an inkling.