Local Authorities: Children with Special Needs

Baroness McIntosh of Hudnall Excerpts

Thursday 22nd November 2018 Lords Chamber

[Viscount Younger of Leckie]

I will certainly take that back and will also give a little more information about it. The local authority must, after consultation with the independent school, name the requested school unless specific criteria apply indicating that provision would be unsuitable for the young person’s needs. The school or institution named in the EHC plan must then admit the child or young person—so it is pretty clear.

[Baroness McIntosh of Hudnall (Lab)]

Perhaps I might take the Minister back to the Answer that he gave to my noble friend on the Front Bench. He mentioned the variability in the occurrence of appeals from local authority to local authority. That suggests the criteria against which special educational needs are being measured also vary from local authority to local authority—which I believe they do. Does he think that that is appropriate?

[Viscount Younger of Leckie]

It is certainly true. As I said earlier, the system is still relatively new and we will need time to fully bed it in. There are early signs that the system overall is working. We have given £391 million to local areas to support implementation of this. We are yet to ascertain why there is variability. For example, I know that in Bradford and Shropshire there have been very few appeals, but in Kent and Surrey there have been a lot. So there is quite a lot of work to be done to analyse the statistics. It may be something to do with the idiosyncrasies of the particular areas.