This review was undertaken as part of a research project commissioned by the Scottish Executive and carried out by a team from Glasgow and Newcastle Universities between January 2000 and January 2001 when the report was published (Banks et al., 2001). The research study, entitled ‘Raising the Attainment of Pupils with Special Educational Needs’, followed the issuing of new guidelines (SOEID, 1998a; SEED, 1999) which linked the use of individualised educational programmes (IEPs) to the wider political enterprise of raising standards through target‐setting.

This paper is based on an investigation into individualised educational programmes (IEPs). The project, entitled ‘Raising the Attainment of Pupils with Special Educational Needs’, was commissioned by the Scottish Executive Education Department in 2000 and was completed in 2001. A literature review published previously traces the origins of IEPs and compares and contrasts their use in education systems in the UK, elsewhere in Europe, in the USA and in Australia.

Anne Baynes (Project Director of The Education Towards Employment Project at North Tyneside College) and Alan Dyson (Co‐director of the Special Needs Research Group at the University of Newcastle upon Tyne) identify and discuss the disadvantages experienced by people with learning difficulties in the labour market, particularly at a time of high unemployment, and raise fundamental questions about the relationship between special and vocational education. The Project at North Tyneside College has had to confront these issues in developing an ‘employability’ course for adults with learning difficulties.

Recent statute in Scotland (Children (Scotland) Act, 1996; Standards in Scotland’s Schools, etc. Act (Scotland), 2000; Disability Discrimination Act, 1995, as amended) has lent force to attempts to increase the participation of pupils and parents in educational processes, particularly in decision-making. These attempts are apparent in policy recommendations (SOED,1994; SOEID, 1998) and are further evidenced in the field of special educational needs (SEN) in the response to recent proposals for consultation (SEED, 2002) and in the drafting of new legislation with regard to additional support needs. While there is a consensus that such participation is desirable, education professionals are not in agreement about what constitutes participation, nor have schools found easy the development of more participative ways of working with pupils and their parents. This article discusses these issues in relation to the findings of a recent Scottish Executive funded research project Raising the Attainment of Pupils with Special Educational Needs (Banks, et al., 2001)