Disabled Students’ Allowance.

Baroness Evans of Bowes Park Excerpts

Monday 2nd November 2015 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Evans of Bowes Park (Con)]

My Lords, I thank the noble Lord, Lord Addington, for securing this debate and for his knowledgeable and passionate speech and I thank all noble Lords for their valuable contributions. I will attempt to answer the various questions raised. This debate has shown that across the House we all share a vision of a higher education sector which is truly inclusive and gives disabled students the opportunity to achieve their academic potential. I assure the noble Lord, Lord Lipsey, that we want to see the Lewises of the future continuing to get the support they need and continuing to be able to take advantage of what higher education has to offer. Disabled students’ allowances continue to play a key role in that but equally so do our higher education institutions and it is important that disabled students receive an appropriate level of support wherever and whatever they choose to study.

Students should arrive at university in the knowledge that as much as possible has been done to enable them to study effectively and that the institution they are attending has done all it reasonably can to ensure this. Of course, there will be occasions where an institution cannot do everything and DSAs will remain available to help students where this applies. In response to the questions of the noble Lord, Lord Addington, about individuality, DSAs will continue to provide individual support to overcoming barriers that inclusive learning and reasonable adjustments, which I will come to in a minute, do not address. I remind noble Lords that the DSA system has always been designed to fund only the additional costs a student is obliged to incur in relation to their studies by virtue of their disability. There has always been an expectation, as the noble Baroness said, that universities should make reasonable adjustments so that a student will not have to seek support through the DSA system for support that is or should be being provided by the university.

A number of welcome changes have been made over the past few decades that have opened up higher education to disabled students and we have heard them mentioned today. The Disability Discrimination Act 1995 and the Equality Act 2010 introduced clear duties for institutions around reasonable adjustments, so higher education institutions have had such obligations for a considerable amount of time. Many institutions have responded positively to these duties; however, it is important that all are ambitious in striving for an inclusive learning environment and aspire to the very best practice to improve the services and support they provide to disabled students outside the DSA system. The Government currently spend over £145 million through DSAs to help individual students overcome barriers to their education. We believe that innovative approaches by institutions can reduce these barriers further over time.

Noble Lords will also be aware that disabled students’ allowances are administered in a way that has not fundamentally changed since the 1990s, yet, of course, there have been significant technological changes since then which have transformed opportunities for all students, including disabled students, enabling them to access information and technology in a way not previously envisaged. For instance, many items that were considered specialist support, such as laptops, are now mainstream items, with access readily available in universities. Expenditure on DSAs has increased year on year, with an increase of around 44% over three years to 2012-13. We therefore feel that reform is necessary to modernise the system and ensure value for taxpayers’ money in this new landscape.

As we have heard, we have recently consulted the sector on how to balance the responsibilities between DSAs and institutions, and how this can be achieved. However, I make very clear that the Government are not proposing to abolish DSAs. Rather, we have consulted institutions about how they might play a more active role in supporting their students. It is intended that DSAs will remain available to complement the support provided by institutions and that students will continue to receive the support they need.

Standards and guidance have been mentioned. We certainly propose to encourage sector organisations such as Universities UK and GuildHE to work with other sector stakeholders to identify, promote and disseminate best practice in inclusivity, so that we can ensure universities can learn from each other and that students do not suffer.

The Government propose that certain types of human support, for example note-takers and library assistants, become the responsibility of institutions. We believe that institutions can do a great deal more to make information and the learning environment more accessible to students and that it should no longer be necessary to provide individual one-to-one support in all cases. But where individual support is necessary, institutions should consider how best to meet that need and should explore innovative approaches to providing that support.

We also expect that institutions will no longer pass on the additional costs of specialist accommodation to their students in the expectation that DSAs will cover that cost. We are considering the continued need for DSA to fund individual items of equipment, for example printers, as we have heard, and have consulted on how other support might meet that need—for example, alternative format materials. While the provision of assistive technology was not subject to consultation, it was an issue raised by the noble Lord, Lord Addington, so I will respond briefly to it. Officials already work closely with sector representatives through the Disabled Students Stakeholder Group IT subgroup to ensure that products available through DSAs are fit for purpose. We will continue to work with these and others as new options for procurement of assistive technology are explored. The Government welcome, and want to continue, working with both the assistive technology sector and mainstream technology manufacturers to ensure that the products they produce meet the needs of disabled students. I reassure noble Lords that we do not propose changes to more specialist forms of support—for example, the provision of British sign language interpreters.

The consultation has now closed. I again reassure the noble Baroness, Lady Thomas, that we are indeed taking it seriously. We have received just over 200 responses from a wide range of stakeholders, including students, members of the public, higher education institutions, disability charities and DSA assessors and providers. This wide range of responses has provided a great deal of information for consideration, which is currently being analysed by the department, as is the additional evidence received which will inform the ongoing equality analysis. I confirm that the department is indeed talking to the Office for Disability Issues. We are already in discussion about the consultation. I am certainly happy to commit that the other organisations the noble Baroness mentioned will obviously also be involved.

Officials are looking at introducing a benchmark for inclusivity and providing better information to students about their institution’s provision for disabled students. It would be wrong of me to pre-empt the outcome of the consultation, which has yet to be considered in full by Ministers. However, I can tell noble Lords that the Government expect to publish a response to the consultation before the end of the year, with the implementation of any changes taking place from 2016.

The noble Baroness, Lady Garden, asked a couple of questions. Again, I do not wish to prejudice the outcome of the consultation, but officials will be looking at how to evaluate and monitor how institutions are responding to the potential changes, and a full equality assessment will be undertaken before the changes are introduced.

As regards some of the more specific questions on funding referred to by the noble Baroness, Lady Hayter, if it is all right with her I will write to her with a bit more detail. I am afraid that I do not have all the figures to hand, and rather than giving her a small answer I will attempt to give a fuller answer in a letter.

In conclusion, the Government remain committed to supporting disabled students to access higher education. Students are right to expect support from their higher education institution and DSAs have been available to complement that support for nearly 25 years. That is not changing. What is changing is the balance between the two sources of support. The changes that we are proposing reflect our desire to modernise DSAs, to ensure value for money and to reflect our expectation that institutions will fulfil their duties under the Equality Act. Our changes will see a DSA system that is sustainable, fit for purpose and targeted at those with the greatest need, and, most importantly, that ensures that disabled students can continue higher education at whatever institution they wish.