Children and Families Bill

Debate between Baroness Howe of Idlicote and Baroness Wilkins

Tuesday 17th December 2013 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Wilkins]

My Lords, I hope that the Government will agree to this amendment. Clause 22 requires local authorities to identify children with special educational needs. This amendment would require the local authority to publish these data within its formal offer. I have tabled the amendment because I am concerned about the availability of good-quality data on children with SEN and disabilities. It is an important issue, which could well determine the success of the Government’s proposed reforms.

Accurate data on the number of children in their area is vital for local authorities effectively to plan and deliver services. The draft SEN code of practice, particularly in the section on joint commissioning, outlines the importance of local data sets in identifying the needs of children with SEN and in informing their decision-making. Without good-quality data, it is difficult to see how the Government or local authorities can effectively plan and commission services for children with SEN and disabilities. It also means that we have a very weak basis on which to determine the long-term impact of these changes.

I am pleased to see that the Government will be amending the Bill so that local authorities have a clear duty to identify children with disabilities, as well as those with SEN. However, there is compelling evidence that existing data sets are failing accurately to identify all children with SEN and disabilities. Currently, data from different sources for the same area can vary widely. Using deafness as an example, I know that different figures on the number of deaf children vary by as much as 30,000: according to the disability register, there are 7,500 deaf children; according to the school census, there are 16,000; and, according to the National Deaf Children’s Society’s survey of all 152 local authorities in England, there are 37,500 deaf children.

Sense has also identified a widespread failure accurately to identify numbers of children who are deafblind. In the local authority of Kensington and Chelsea, Sense has found that, according to the prevalence data, there should be around 10 deafblind children. However, the local authority has identified four. How many have been identified by the school census? The answer is none. These children urgently need specialist SEN support, so why is the system not capturing them?

In Grand Committee, the Minister enumerated the various sets of data that are published but failed to acknowledge that the existing data sets are inadequate. For example, the Special Educational Needs in England report does not cover all children with SEN and so misses more than 40% of school-age deaf children. A single data set is needed to bring together all the data from different sources into a format which would ensure well informed commissioning decisions.

It is difficult to see how the Minister’s department will meet the ambitions set out in the Bill unless we have a reliable and single data set that accurately captures all children with an SEN and disability. The current state of affairs cannot be allowed to continue whereby 152 local authorities are left failing correctly to identify and record all children with SEN and disabilities. I hope that the Minister will give the House reassurance that the urgency of this matter is recognised and that work is in hand to ensure that commissioning can rely on accurate data before this Bill comes into force. I beg to move.

[Baroness Howe of Idlicote]

My Lords, I support the amendment tabled by the noble Baroness, Lady Wilkins. Good quality data on children with SEN and disabilities must be in place before we proceed with these reforms. Unless action is taken, there is a clear risk that some children will continue to fall through the net. The department’s draft SEN code of practice acknowledges that issue and specifically highlights the importance of quality data on children with low incidence needs. Given that these children’s needs are relatively less common, there is an even greater need to establish their needs and whether local provision is sufficient to meet them.

However, as the noble Baroness, Lady Wilkins, has pointed out, existing data sets are flawed. The code of practice refers to the disability register. However, in the case of deaf children, I understand that it is identifying only around 7,000 to 8,000 children, whereas other estimates suggest that 40,000 would be closer to the truth. I understand that the department recently published guidance to local authorities on implementation of the new nought to 25 special needs system. In that, the Department for Education asks local strategic leaders to consider what their data tell them about local outcomes for children and young people with SEN.

My concern is that, whatever these data tell them, they are not going to give a reliable or accurate impression of children with SEN because the underlying data sets and systems are so fundamentally flawed. I hope that the Minister will be able to reply positively in support of this amendment or indicate that positive action is being taken to address these concerns.

Children and Families Bill

Debate between Baroness Howe of Idlicote and Baroness Wilkins

Wednesday 6th November 2013 Grand Committee

[Baroness Howe of Idlicote]

My Lords, this amendment would insert a new clause imposing a duty to secure sufficient communication support for parents of children with hearing loss. The amendment would create a new duty on local authorities to ensure that families with deaf children have access to communication courses on communicating with their children. Some 90% of deaf children are born to hearing parents, many of whom have little or no prior experience of deafness. As well as the usual emotions that parents face when they learn that their child is disabled, parents of deaf children face a battle in learning how best to communicate with that child, particularly if they need to learn sign language.

Of course, sign language will not be appropriate for all families and children, but that option must be there if parents are to be able to play their important role in developing their children’s language and communication skills. I do not need to stress to the Minister how important and fundamental communication within the family is. It is the strongest influence on language development at age two. Money spent here to achieve those skills can be an absolutely invaluable investment. Indeed, failure to support communication within the family is a false economy. It condemns deaf children to a life of frustrated potential. We already know that by the time they start school, four out of five deaf children have failed to achieve a good level of development within the early years foundation stage.

The National Deaf Children’s Society believes that supporting families with deaf children on communication is more than just common sense and should be regarded as a basic human right. We must do more to ensure that families with deaf children can communicate with those children. Sadly, at present, I do not believe that we are doing enough. In a survey in 2011, the NDCS found that more than half—56%—of local authorities did not provide any support to families who needed to learn sign language to communicate with their children. The other half were found to be patchy and uneven in terms of exactly what they provided.

Some families have faced an agonising choice of deciding whether the mother or the father would be able to learn sign language, because local authorities have made funding available for only one person or because there is no childcare funding available. When this matter was raised elsewhere, the Government, alas, left it to the local authorities, saying that it was a matter to them to decide. Is the Minister confident that local authorities understand how important communication support for families is? Is he as concerned as I am, and as many others are, that more local authorities do not already make it available?

I acknowledge that the department has funded a range of projects to improve sign language provision to families, including the I-Sign consortium. That is welcome and certainly much appreciated. I also acknowledge the department’s hope that the Bill will address some of these difficulties, particularly through local offers and personal budgets. However, I would welcome the Minister’s views on whether he thinks this is likely to lead to the step change in provision that deaf children badly need—not in the future but here and now.

Is he confident that sign language courses will be included in local offers? Is he confident that courses would even be available to families should they wish to use their personal budgets for this purpose? Is he confident that local authorities will engage with, and listen to, families with deaf children on this matter? We must remember that deafness, as we have already heard from the noble Baroness, Lady Walmsley, is a low-incidence disability. Many local authorities are unlikely to be familiar with the needs of deaf children, who will always be one of a range of competing needs. Therefore, without a clear duty on local authorities, I and many others are concerned that sign language provision for families will continue to be patchy and progress will continue to be piecemeal. Surely, deaf children and their families deserve better and I hope that the Minister will seriously consider this amendment and its implications. I beg to move.

[Baroness Wilkins]

My Lords, I will speak briefly to support the amendment moved by the noble Baroness, Lady Howe. She has made a strong and clear case for action. This issue has been raised elsewhere several times and the fact that it continues to be raised must show the Minister the strength of feeling on it. The current approach of asking voluntary bodies to support improvements in individual local areas is just too piecemeal. The progress being made is far too slow, and deaf children are suffering because of it. Access to communication support for families with deaf children and young people is fundamentally important; the Government must send a clear signal to local authorities that it should be provided where needed. Otherwise, we will be here in 10 years’ time, still having this debate about the lack of sign language provision for families. I beg the Committee to support this amendment.

Welfare Reform Bill

Debate between Baroness Howe of Idlicote and Baroness Wilkins

Tuesday 1st November 2011 Grand Committee

[Baroness Howe of Idlicote]

My Lords, this has been an interesting and extremely wide-ranging—

[Baroness Wilkins]

The Minister was about to reply.

[Baroness Howe of Idlicote]

Sorry.

Academies Bill [HL]

Debate between Baroness Howe of Idlicote and Baroness Wilkins

Tuesday 13th July 2010 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Wilkins]

My Lords, this amendment is also tabled in the name of the noble Baroness, Lady Howe of Idlicote. Both in Committee and on Report I have spoken about my concerns that a large increase in the number of academies will have the unintended consequence of dispersing funding for children with low incidence or complex special educational needs. As a result, vital support services for these children and their parents will become untenable, and there could be large numbers of deaf and blind children and others with multi-sensory impairments who do not get the support they need.

These concerns have received the support of all sides of the House and I am grateful to all noble Lords who have spoken. They are also shared by the National Sensory Impairment Partnership, the Special Educational Consortium and, particularly, the National Deaf Children’s Society, RNIB and Sense. I should like to thank the noble Lord, Lord Hill, and his officials for taking the time to meet with me yesterday afternoon, as he offered to do on Report, and it is therefore with regret that I must speak again to say that these concerns have still not been addressed. Sadly, while the Government are willing to recognise that the problem is real, they have shown no real urgency in coming up with a way forward. As the Special Educational Consortium points out in its briefing, the Government should recognise that there is a need to address the impact of the Academies Bill on individual children currently receiving specialist provision when a number of schools convert to academy status in September 2010.

I am alarmed that the Government should seek to pass this Bill knowing that potentially it could damage the educational prospects of some of the most vulnerable children in the country. The number of children may be small and the impact may not be immediate, but that is no excuse for failing to come up with a solution that will reassure parents and children that they will get the support they need. The National Sensory Impairment Partnership believes that the Government should set up a working group to consider solutions. The working group should be time-limited and have clear terms of reference to consider this issue and make urgent recommendations. The group must be led by Government and its recommendations must be communicated by the Government to all local authorities and schools across the country. I stress that the working group should also include representatives of the parents of children with sensory impairments, and I strongly urge the Government to accept the recommendation.

I hope that the Minister can give a positive reply before the Bill moves to the other place. But in the absence of that positive response, I have spoken to Members of the other place who have said that they will continue to raise this matter until we are certain that the educational prospects of disabled children will not be damaged by these proposals. I beg to move.

[Baroness Howe of Idlicote]

My Lords, I, too, support this amendment, as I have done on previous occasions. It is sad indeed that the Minister has not yet been able fully to satisfy our concerns. Disabled children and those with SEN often need specialist support to ensure that they achieve positive learning outcomes. These services are crucial for pupils with a wide range of disabilities and have a unique role to play in the education of children with low incident disabilities such as blindness, partial sight and hearing impairments.

Specialist support services are not focused solely on the delivery of the curriculum. They also provide much-needed training and skills to support independent living, and examples of some of those specialist services give a clear view. I cite the teaching of Braille and of British sign language, independent living training to enable independent personal care skills and home skills, mobility instruction and pre-employment support. Local authorities have traditionally provided specialist support services to all schools, using funds retained from school budgets to ensure adequate provision throughout their areas. There are strong concerns that, as academies move out of local authority control, so will their revenue, reducing the amount available overall to specialist support services and relying on academies to commission the services they require. I hope that while the Bill is still with us, we will have further assurances from the Minister. Otherwise, as the noble Baroness, Lady Wilkins, said, the issue will come up again in the other place.

Academies Bill [HL]

Debate between Baroness Howe of Idlicote and Baroness Wilkins

Wednesday 7th July 2010 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Wilkins]

My Lords, I speak to Amendment 21. In Committee, I spoke about my concerns that the Academies Bill will fatally undermine specialist support services for children with low incidence needs. I am grateful to the Minister for his letter of 2 July in response to these concerns, and to the noble Lord, Lord Wallace, for his reply in Committee. I particularly welcome the Government’s commitment that pupils in academies with low incidence SEN needs or disabilities will receive the support they require from specialist support services. But, unfortunately, my worries have not yet been allayed. The Special Educational Consortium, particularly the National Deaf Children’s Society, RNIB and Sense, share my concerns.

The funding arrangements for specialist support services may be complex but the problem is clear. If funding from the schools budget for specialist support services is to be dispersed widely to a large number of academies in a given area, this will reduce the funding available to existing specialist support services in local authorities. It takes away the pooling of resources that ensures services to children with low incidence needs can be met at reasonable value for money. As the noble Lord, Lord Hill, put it in his letter to me, this will result in “dis-economies of scale”. The noble Lord noted that academies will be able to buy back support from their local authority. However, a survey by the National Deaf Children’s Society raises serious concerns that this is simply not happening. The society found that of 66 local authorities where a deaf child with a statement of SEN was enrolled in an existing academy, in only 17 of these local authorities were the academies buying in support.

So what is happening to the deaf children in the other 49 local authorities? The society suspects that many local authorities are providing services free of charge, but that clearly will not be sustainable with greater numbers of academies. The worst case scenario is that children with sensory impairments are going without the support they need. NDCS is aware of examples where this is currently happening—for instance, in one local authority in Yorkshire and the Humber, where uncertainty over funding and buy-back has left deaf children totally unsupported.

In Committee, the Minister stated that he recognises this is a continuing problem, and that was very welcome. However, I would like him to go further and commit to finding an urgent solution to this problem. I recognise that it is not a new problem. However, if the Academies Bill is going to make matters worse, surely the Minister has a responsibility to act now before the Bill becomes law. In Committee, he suggested that “partnerships among schools” will clearly be the best way forward. Will he say a little more about how this will work in practice? How will these partnerships be funded? What support and guidance are being provided to schools to develop them? How many partnerships are there in place already? Most importantly, what evidence is there that these partnerships will ensure that every child with low incidence needs gets the support that they need?

The Minister also stated that academies will have access to top-up funding to cover the costs of support for children with low incidence needs. He went on to say that this will be funded by the local authority from its schools budget. Will he confirm that this is the same schools budget which will be cut if a large number of schools convert to academies? If so, how can these specialist support services be funded and provided on a reliable and sustainable basis?

The Minister stated that if the academy fails to secure the necessary support, it will be in breach of its funding agreement, and that the Young People’s Learning Agency can investigate, following a complaint. In Committee, the noble Baroness, Lady Sharp, made the important and obvious point that the YPLA is not an inspection agency. In response, the Minister stated that voluntary organisations will monitor the situation. However, surely he must agree that this is a very weak and unacceptable safeguard against the risk that children with low incidence needs will be denied the support they need. Many voluntary organisations simply do not have the capacity to monitor provision in large numbers of individual academies across England. It is not appropriate for such organisations to act as a watchdog, relying on them to make sure that the Government and academies fulfil their legal duties towards children with special educational needs.

My amendment would move funding for specialist support services out of the schools budget and into the LEA budget. This would protect these services from some of the unintended consequences to which I referred earlier. In Committee, the Minister did not set out his view on this. If it is his view that this amendment should not be passed, I should be grateful if he could explain why, and what alternative remedy will be put in its place. My amendment would also give the Secretary of State the power to make alternative arrangements if specialist support services in any particular area are inadequate.

In his letter, the noble Lord, Lord Hill, noted that academies will in future be free to buy in services from other providers. In light of the difficulties that some local authorities have in meeting the needs of children with low incidence needs, I recognise the appeal of this and hope that this option will be explored further, as I have no desire to prop up services that are not doing a good job. However, I stress that this needs to be fully thought through and fully planned for.

I very much welcome the fact that officials have met with the National Sensory Impairment Partnership, as the noble Lord, Lord Hill, pointed out in his letter. I have been told that the partnership also welcomes this and believes that there has been a useful discussion and exchange of views, which it is keen to continue. However, it does not believe that there has been sufficient progress in resolving the outstanding questions and concerns.

The partnership believes that the Government should set up a time-limited working group that will consider alternative arrangements and make urgent recommendations. This group should include representatives from the Department for Education, local authorities, professionals, head teachers of academies and maintained schools, and parents. I firmly agree with the partnership. If the Government wish to show that they are serious about addressing these important concerns about specialist support services and diseconomies of scale, it is imperative that a working group be set up immediately, and I very much hope that the Minister will give me a positive reply to this proposal, which would do much to alleviate the concerns.

Children with low incidence needs may, by definition, be fewer in number. That cannot be an excuse to pass a Bill which would potentially prevent many from getting the support that they need. I urge the Minister to do more than just recognise that there is a problem. He must find solutions before this Bill is allowed to pass. I beg to move.

[Baroness Howe of Idlicote]

My Lords, I support the amendment in the name of my noble friend Lady Wilkins, as I did with regard to her amendment in Committee. I agree with my noble friend and share her concerns on specialist support services for children with low-incidence needs. I also agree that the Minister has not yet, I fear, provided a satisfactory response on these important concerns. I also reiterate the point made by my noble friend that the Government’s desire to pass the Bill speedily must not be at the expense of children with low-incidence needs.

In Committee, I highlighted my concerns about the impact of the Bill on the range of services delivered by specialist support services outside school. For example, many services provide pre-school support directly to families and children to aid language acquisition and to teach Braille. Support may also be given to ensure that children with visual impairments have the necessary independent living skills. Such support is essential if we wish to ensure that children with low-incidence needs are able to fulfil their potential and live independently later in life. The cost of failing to provide such support is likely to be prohibitive to individuals with low-incidence needs and also to the Government’s welfare budget. I am concerned that such services may be compromised if the schools budget for specialist support services is cut when a large number of schools convert to academies. When it comes to low-incidence needs, surely it is vital that our limited resources are pooled and used effectively to fund the services and ensure the best possible value for money.

I am concerned also that these unintended consequences will result not only in wastage but also in very poor value for money. These concerns are shared by the Special Education Consortium. I regret that the Minister did not address the concerns that I expressed in Committee that such preschool services would be undermined by the Bill. I strongly urge him to do so today.

Academies Bill [HL]

Debate between Baroness Howe of Idlicote and Baroness Wilkins

Monday 28th June 2010 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Wilkins]

Amendment 97 does not sit easily with the other two amendments in this group and is on a separate area. Therefore, we are moving on. This probing amendment seeks firm reassurance from the Government on how the Academies Bill may impact on specialist support services for children with low-incidence special educational needs and disabilities. I am focusing my remarks on specialist support services for deaf children, but these issues are applicable to other children with low-incidence needs, such as those with visual impairments.

The National Deaf Children’s Society, to which I am indebted for its advice on this issue, estimates that there are more than 35,000 deaf children in England, of whom 90 per cent attend mainstream schools. However, deafness is a low-incidence need. As a result, in many schools it may be many years before a deaf child enrols. The reality is that deaf children are spread unevenly in mainstream schools across any one area. There is no reason why a deaf child cannot achieve as well as their hearing friends, provided that they get the support that they need from the start. This support is normally provided through local authority specialist support services, which cover a wide range. They include providing the school with amplification equipment, such as microphones; ensuring that there are follow-up checks and maintenance; training mainstream teachers on how to support deaf children; and, most importantly, providing direct support to families to help with pre-school language development.

These services are normally funded by the local authority, but academies will be independent from them. I am therefore seeking reassurance that deaf children will still receive the support that they need in a school system with a greater number of independent academies. Currently, in local authority maintained schools, schools funding is allocated to local authorities by the Government. While most of the money is then delegated to schools, local authorities will usually retain or top-slice some money to fund services, such as the specialist support services for deaf children. The service then provides outreach support free of charge to all local authority maintained schools in its area. Where a school becomes an academy, any money retained or top-sliced will be taken away from the local authority and given straight to academies, which will be expected to buy in any specialist support that their pupils will need. But if a child has a low-incidence need, such as deafness, the cost of meeting this specialist support to one individual academy will be proportionately greater. The economies of scale that operate at a local authority level will not exist at individual academy level. I am deeply concerned that any extra funding that academies receive will not cover the costs for these necessary services, which may result in deaf children not getting the support that they need. This is not a theoretical risk.

The National Deaf Children’s Society is already aware of a number of cases in existing academies where deaf children have gone without the support that they need. Last year, when the NDCS did a survey of local authority specialist support services for deaf children, it asked whether any academies in their areas bought in support for any deaf children who were enrolled at those academies. I am shocked that nearly three-quarters of academies did not buy in any support, which raises alarm bells as to how deaf children in these academies are being supported, if at all. Surely, that is an inefficient way of funding specialist support services for deaf children. This top-slice money that academies will receive will go to all academies, even if they do not have a deaf child on their rolls. Does the Minister share my concern that this will be poor value for money?

My amendment aims to address these concerns. The first part would amend the School Finance (England) Regulations 2008 with the intended effect of moving funding for specialist support services for low-incidence special educational needs from the schools budget to the core LEA budget. This would prevent funding for specialist support services for low-incidence needs being top-sliced and spent inefficiently in the way in which I have described. I would welcome a statement from the Minister on how the department will address this matter.

I am all too aware that local authority specialist support services in some areas are not as good as they should be. For that reason, the second part of the amendment would also give the Secretary of State the power to make alternative arrangements if this is the case. I believe that the Government need to take urgent action to set up a working group to consider whether alternative arrangements, such as parent-led services, might offer a better way in those areas of delivering such services. I urge the Minister to ensure that any such working group includes representatives of children with low-incidence needs as well as their parents.

However, any alternative arrangements need to be carefully thought through and planned to ensure continuity in the service that deaf children receive. It is not good enough simply to throw our cards in the air and hope for the best. Government figures show that deaf children are already 42 per cent less likely to do as well in their GCSEs as other children. It is vital that this Bill helps us to ensure that deaf children get the support they need, regardless of the type of school they attend. I hope that the Minister will be able to reassure me on this. Should he not do so, I will return to this issue on Report.

[Baroness Howe of Idlicote]

My Lords, I very much support the probing amendment in the name of my noble friend Lady Wilkins. I agree with my noble friend and I am glad that she indicated that it is not suitably grouped. I share her concerns over the impact of the Academies Bill on specialist support services for low-incidence special educational needs and disabilities. I also am grateful to the National Deaf Children’s Society for its briefing.

In particular, I am concerned about the impact of the Bill on outreach services to pre-school children. Parents are at the heart of a child’s learning, as we would all agree, but the parents of a child with special educational needs or a disability need extra help, as well as the child. In many cases, this extra help is provided by the local specialist support services. We have heard about the important role that local authorities play in that. For example, the parents of children with communication difficulties need guidance and support on how to communicate effectively with their child. Without such support, it would be far more difficult for these children to acquire language and to develop communication skills at the same rate as their peers. A huge responsibility rests with helping the parents.

We risk condemning children with these communication difficulties to a life of underachievement before they even begin school. We have already heard from my noble friend Lady Wilkins just how far behind they can fall if they do not have early access to the services they need. Almost certainly, when such children start school, the school they attend will be forced to provide costly catch-up support.

There is a range of other pre-school services that families of other disabled children will find invaluable. I am very concerned that if funding for these services is delegated to academies, they may be unable or unwilling to invest in pre-school services. I am also concerned that it may be unsustainable for existing providers to do this if much of their funding is reduced as a result of the Bill. Like my noble friend Lady Wilkins, I would warmly welcome reassurance from the Minister that the Bill will not risk undermining these valuable pre-school services for disabled children. We are all urging the earliest possible testing for special needs. If ever there was a need, it is for this group of children.