4:5. Regardless of whether funding for pupils with statements is delegated to schools, responsibility for arranging the necessary provision rests with the LEA.  When funding is delegated, LMS schemes must include conditions requiring governing bodies to ensure that all the provision specified in the statement is made.  Schemes should also set out the necessary arrangements whereby the LEA will satisfy themselves that these conditions are being met.

4:6. As with the criteria for proceeding to a statutory assessment, the guidance set out below provides a framework within which it is important that schools, LEAs and other agencies involved develop the detail of local interpretation.  Some LEAs have already reached agreements with schools about the level of resources that a school may be expected to expend on provision to meet the ascertained special educational needs of its pupils.  In some LEAs this has been expressed as a percentage of the value of the pupil-led element of the school's annual budget.  LEAs and schools may wish to develop measures of this type that will support decision-making at a local level about the precise level of resources that may be expected to be provided from within schools' budgets.

4:7. To help ensure consistency in the administration of criteria for statutory assessment at a local level, the Code suggests that LEAs consider setting up moderating groups - see paragraph 3:48.  Such groups should be broadly representative of head teachers, should include representation from health and social services and may include others such as SEN coordinators, teachers, governors and educational psychologists.  LEAs may wish to extend the remit of such groups to encourage consistent decisions about whether to make statements.  Groups would not make decisions in individual cases, but, through sampling and retrospective comparison, would help make LEA practice more robust and clearly understood by schools and parents.

4:8. In deciding whether to draw up a statement the LEA should consider all the information emerging from the statutory assessment in the light of the evidence put forward by the school at the beginning of the assessment.

4:9. LEAs may therefore wish to ask the following questions:

i. the child's learning difficulties

  - is the information on the child's learning difficulties that emerges from the statutory assessment broadly in accord with the evidence presented by the school for consideration by the LEA?

  - if not, are there aspects of the child's learning difficulties which the school may  have overlooked and which, with the benefit of advice, equipment or other provision, the school could effectively address within its own resources?

ii.    the child's special educational provision

- do the proposals for the child's special educational provision emerging from the statutory assessment indicate that the special educational provision being made b) the school, including teaching strategies or other approaches, is appropriate to the child's learning difficulties?

  - if not, are there approaches which, with the benefit of advice, equipment or other provision, the school could effectively adopt within its own resources?