Children’s Wellbeing and Schools Bill
Baroness Berridge Excerpts(1 week, 3 days ago)
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Baroness Berridge (Con)
My Lords, the Bill contains a first step, possible underreach, possible overreach and, I think, a bonus.
Clause 11 is a good first step as it brings about 1,000 vulnerable young people who are deprived of their liberty under the inherent jurisdiction of the courts into a statutory framework. High Court DoLS, as they are referred to, have developed when there is no secure children’s home place under Section 25 of the Children Act, or that is not an appropriate placement for them. However, that section will still refer to only looked-after children and the report by the Children’s Commissioner on this vulnerable group makes it clear that it is not only looked-after children who are under this regime. Could the Minister clarify whether the inherent jurisdiction will still have to be used for those children? Before statutory instruments are laid, can we have some more details about the definition of “relevant accommodation”?
On the underreach, it seems that under Clause 32 a preliminary school attendance order can be made only when a child is under a Section 47 Children Act inquiry, not for a child in need or a child protection plan. It is my understanding that Sara Sharif was actually a child in need, so could we actually have bizarre underreach in that we have not covered the main mischief, the main sad case, under these provisions?
The overreach, as noble Lords have said, is in relation to special educational needs and disabilities. For many of those parents, this is not elective home education; it is sadly withdrawing your children when mainstream education has failed. I implore the Minister to have another go at stakeholder engagement with the many groups. There are fears, founded or unfounded, of local authorities coming through your front door and asking you probing questions about your curriculum and how you are educating your children. It is important to recognise that this is a very different environment for education. I make the comparison with Ofsted, which is left with some of the smallest independent schools that are often small belief systems; it has developed particular expertise to inspect those schools while keeping engagement with the parents and school leaders. It seems that that is going to be required of many local authority employees, and it is a difficult task to get right.
At this moment, I sidestep to agree with the noble Baroness, Lady Morgan, about whether the day has come for ISI. It is clearly a historical accident. Imagine if your BUPA private hospital could join an association that then gave it access to its own inspection regime. We would all be worried if our healthcare were not all inspected by the CQC. I hope we will come back to this matter in Committee.
The bonus is, I think, for those with children with complex needs. Clause 30 says you need local authority consent to remove your child from, basically, special schools. Section 61 of the Children and Families Act 2014 contains the acronym EOTAS, meaning “education other than at school”. That is not elective home education; it is where the local authority has responsibility to provide education outside school. Surely, if the local authority has consented to you removing your child from a special school, it is much more likely now that you are going to pass the test that school is an inappropriate venue for the education of your child, and therefore you will be able to have the EOTAS regime for your child with complex needs.
I greatly respect DfE officials and I hope the Minister will give parents a bonus and quash the rumours that officials are pressing local authorities not to grant EOTAS as it is saying that children can be educated at home rather than in an institution. I hope she will give that bonus to those parents today.
Adoption and Special Guardianship Support Fund
Baroness Berridge Excerpts(1 month, 1 week ago)
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Baroness Smith of Malvern (Lab)
We want to come forward quickly with information about how new applications can be made, and I will be happy to share details of that with the House. I understand that, when applications are made, they are dealt with quickly through the system, but we need to be clear with people about how to go about making those applications, and that is something that we are working on at this moment.
Baroness Berridge (Con)
My Lords, the funding that has been announced for the next financial year is welcome, and I know that the Government have said that funding going forward will be subject to the spending review. Is it anticipated that there will be an announcement that this fund will be secured over more than one year?
Baroness Smith of Malvern (Lab)
I think the noble Baroness answered the question in her question. We have announced £50 million for this financial year and, as part of the coming spending review, we will look to consider the position over a longer period. That is not only in respect of this particular fund but is the case with a lot of the expenditure we currently have and would have been the case under the previous Government as well in the run-up to a three-year spending review, which is the period we are in now.
Schools: Special Educational Needs
Baroness Berridge Excerpts(1 month, 3 weeks ago)
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Baroness Smith of Malvern (Lab)
I know that the noble Baroness has not only raised the issue of dyscalculia with me but, in doing so, drawn attention to it more broadly. The approach that is taken in initial teacher training is not to specifically identify particular conditions because, as I suggested to the noble Lord, the best-quality training for mainstream teachers is in the type and quality of teaching that will enable them to identify needs and to enable children to make the best progress. Where really specific support is needed, that should be commissioned by the special educational needs co-ordinator, within the school or externally. I feel reasonably confident that SENCOs understand the sort of issues that the noble Baroness is raising, but ensuring that information and best practice are available is clearly an important part of the work that we are doing.
Baroness Berridge (Con)
My Lords, when there is not early identification, increasingly parents have been feeling that they have to withdraw their children from mainstream education and home-school them. Could the Minister confirm that we are collecting data on those who are home-educated? Those parents do not think it was an elective home education, and it is important that we know how assessment is failing and why those parents have withdrawn their children and are home-educating them.
Baroness Smith of Malvern (Lab)
The noble Baroness is right that it is an enormous failure of the system if parents feel they have to withdraw their children from school, not voluntarily but because they do not believe that schools are providing for them. That is why it is so important that this Government’s plans to develop a more inclusive and expert mainstream education, alongside specialist schools where there are particularly complex needs and they are needed, is so important. In the Children’s Wellbeing and Schools Bill, which will be coming to this House reasonably soon, we will be taking additional measures around both the consent needed and the understanding of those students who are being home-schooled. On that particular issue, however, I will write to the noble Baroness about the extent of the information that we currently collect.