In 2009, when the Council wrote the specifications for the as yet undeveloped Enhanced Mainstream Schools for Communication and Interaction (autism, Primary) and High Functioning Autism (Secondary), both documents contained the following paragraph:
"The LA will conduct an annual questionnaire to all schools to determine user satisfaction with support and outreach services from EMS. This will inform the performance management and quality assurance processes."
(P4, both documents)
When the Council was asked to publish the results of these questionnaires last year it replied:
The Council has never conducted a questionnaire of all schools and did not receive any responses and so has no information to disclose to you in connection with your request.
In the summer term 2010, each individual EMS undertook a questionnaire which took the form of a self-evaluation process to evidence the impact of their work and included gathering views of service users via a range of methods. The results of these questionnaires are only held by the individual EMS and you would need to contact the schools directly to request this information from them.
Please note, the commitment for the local authority to conduct an annual questionnaire was removed from the EMS Specification in 2010 [and all subsequent Specifications], to reflect localised arrangements.
So that's alright then.
