Special Needs Schools

Baroness Monckton of Dallington Forest Excerpts

Thursday 24th October 2024 Lords Chamber

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[Baroness Monckton of Dallington Forest]

That this House takes note of the contribution that special needs schools and specialist education colleges make to the education sector.

[Baroness Monckton of Dallington Forest (Con)]

My Lords, I declare my interest as set out in the register. It is a privilege to lead this debate on a subject that concerns me both personally and professionally. Team Domenica, the charity that I started in my daughter’s name, is, among other things, a specialist further education institution which provides training for students with learning disabilities, with the aim of transforming their lives through paid employment.

The 130 specialist further education colleges typically cater for people with more complex disabilities, whose needs cannot be met in a mainstream setting. However, there is no definition of such needs. The needs of my daughter, Domenica, as a young woman with Down’s syndrome would not necessarily be described as complex, but she is one of a large cohort for whom a mainstream setting cannot be reasonably adjusted.

Large general further education colleges, typically with over 3,500 students, are not always the best environments for these individuals. These colleges, incorporated under the 1992 education Act, were reclassified by the Office for National Statistics in 2022 as public sector bodies, and as such are out of scope of the pernicious new VAT policy, a tax on learning that we have never known in this country. However, specialist further education colleges are being treated as private schools, although all the students have an EHC plan and are therefore publicly funded. Yet these colleges will still be liable for VAT if they have pupils aged 16. As I have stated previously in your Lordships’ House, I hope that this is just an oversight and one that can be remedied as soon as possible.

Several of our candidates at Team Domenica have come from mainstream settings. One of them said: “At Team Domenica, I am treated fairly with respect—more like an adult. I used to fret a lot at the last place. I don’t feel that here”. One of our parents wrote: “When my daughter started with you she needed one-to-one support, but now she is a very much more independent young lady. She has learnt to fail without feeling like a failure, so if she doesn’t meet a target she tries again and again and again, and eventually she does reach the target. It has been an incredible journey”.

These specialist colleges, which offer a holistic approach, are such an important part of the education system but are all too frequently seen as an expensive adjunct. The alternative for this disfranchised group is a world of isolation. Institutions such as ours give them a chance to emerge from that bleak prospect.

Some of the larger general further education colleges cater for more than 3,000 students with special educational needs. They do a wonderful job. However, they are coming under increasing pressure to take students whose needs they cannot meet, which is a misuse of the duty to admit. Students are being placed against the advice of these colleges, as there are behaviours that the colleges know they will not be able to deal with. These decisions are bad all round. They are bad for the college but, of course, they are particularly bad for the young people involved.

The Government tend to have a focus on the general further education colleges, often to the exclusion of other types of provision. This can be frustrating. We see this in the apprenticeship sector, where around 70% of the provision comes from private training providers yet they are frequently overlooked in policy discussions. I emphasise the role that specialist independent institutions play, and point out that general further education colleges cannot, as they themselves admit, meet all the needs. Of course we need both: an inclusive mainstream and a thriving specialist sector.

I suggest that specialist colleges not only contribute to the education sector but play a critical role in the skills agenda, particularly in supporting people into employment. One area of concern is apprenticeship access. SEN students who are capable of and keen to pursue apprenticeships can be disadvantaged by their requirement to achieve a level 1 in maths and English. These subjects used to be embedded in the programme but are now stand-alone qualifications.

People with learning disabilities can do the practical aspects of training, but for many the academic side is completely beyond them; abstract is not what they do. The result is that some students are unable to pursue this apprenticeship route even though they excel in their practical skills. Why can we not just value the skills that they have and that businesses need, and let them develop at their own pace, making their own unique contribution? The system is setting people up to fail and undermining their hard-won self-confidence. I also see this in the jewellery business, where I have made my career. Apprentices for silversmithing and jewellery making are very hard to come by without adding these unnecessary qualifications. Superb craftsmanship is its own language, which requires no translation and certainly not an English exam.

The Government have announced some flexibility for people with special educational needs, allowing an exemption if they can demonstrate an evidenced judgment of reaching entry level 3. This is a positive step, but I am concerned that the process still remains too unwieldy, complex and costly, which will continue to disadvantage these students and add unnecessary burdens on the college—believe me, we have enough already.

The tribunal system is not working. Some 96% of parents who are turned down for an EHCP by the local authority win their tribunals, but this comes at a huge financial and emotional cost. Unfortunately, the process is protracted and some parents cave in under the pressure; they do not even get to tribunal or, if they do, it is too late for the start of the academic year. This, therefore, is a year’s savings for the local authority, but it is all too frequently a year without education for that young person.

In the academic year 2022-23, just 136 of the nearly 8,000 appeals that went to a hearing upheld decisions by councils. A study by Pro Bono Economics estimated that councils wasted £46.2 million on tribunals in 2021-22. An inevitable consequence of VAT on fees will be a significant rise in tribunal cases, as parents struggle to find the right setting for their learning disabled children. It will be the sharp elbowed who have the best chance. Yet again, it will be the most vulnerable, the isolated and those parents who struggle to fill in the forms who will be forgotten and fall off the radar.

The Government should commit to an independent review of the VAT policy after six months. There has not been a full consultation on the plans or on their impact on SEND provision. Last year, the Department for Education had to pay the courts more than £13 million so it could deliver these SEND tribunals—double the figure the year before, and it will undoubtedly rise much further as a result of the impending education tax.

The system is broken and unnecessarily adversarial. Kate Foale, SEND spokesman for the County Councils Network, said:

“There desperately needs to be action at a governmental level to ensure local authorities and schools have the funding required to meet the needs of all children and young people”.


Councils are already struggling to fund SEND provision. The Local Government Association and the County Councils Network published a report in July, noting that SEND costs will increase to £12 billion by 2025, having doubled over the past decade. They say that this puts council finances on a “cliff edge”.

We are in a divide-and-rule situation whereby local authorities with a statutory duty to fund are at odds with the providers, and the providers end up fighting on all fronts. I have first-hand experience of this, and it wastes an enormous amount of time and energy. We need to work together. I know the Minister is fully aware of how important this is, and I thank her for her intervention on our behalf last month.

The current high-needs funding system came into place in the academic year 2013-14, which is when it was decided that local authorities should both undertake the assessments and provide the funding, thus becoming poacher and gamekeeper—a clear conflict of interest. Before that, assessment and funding decisions were handled separately. The Department for Education maintains that bringing them together was necessary because of spiralling costs, with needs being identified without any thought of the money involved. But it has not published any data demonstrating that the separation of these two processes, rather than increased need, was causing the spiralling costs. It also has not commented on the fact that, despite bringing the two together, costs have spiralled anyway. What it has done is made it much harder for families to get an assessment, because the councils know that, once they have assessed, they have a statutory duty to provide.

The Secretary of State for Education told parents that the SEND system is “fundamentally broken”. She also said she is “serious” about reform and “determined to do it”. She added that she would like to do this on a “cross-party basis” and

“listen to parents and staff”.

I stand here in that spirit of co-operation, determined that, above all else, the interests of learning-disabled people be accorded the highest priority.

When I look at the lives of our many candidates, post-college and in paid work, I see the difference it has made—how much it means to them and to their families, and how much it impacts their well-being and sense of self-worth. That makes me even more determined to fight on their behalf. I will continue to raise my voice in your Lordships’ House on behalf of people with learning disabilities.

One of our candidates died last month, in his early 20s. He was part of our story, and we became part of his. His father told us that he would be buried in his work uniform because it meant the world to him that he had found a job and a life beyond his family, in the community, where we all belong and where his life, lived to the limit of its capacity, touched so many, fulfilling his potential. What more could one possibly want for any of our children or anybody with a learning disability?

--- Later in debate ---

[Baroness Monckton of Dallington Forest (Con)]

My Lords, I thank all noble Lords who have participated in this debate. I particularly thank the noble Baroness, Lady Morris, for pointing out that special schools have improved—when you are mired in it, it is a very difficult thing to remember—and that we have come a long way since we used the term “ineducable”. That is very important. She also pointed out that the assessment framework—the exams taken—needs to focus much more on the purpose of getting people into work. That needs to be looked at.

I thank my noble friend Lord Farmer for saying that parents should never be forgotten. Parents are absolutely key; if you do not have parents on board, it is very difficult to do what is necessary for the young people. They really need to be on side, and to be looked after. As the noble Baroness, Lady Hazarika, said, they are absolutely exhausted most of the time—I speak as one; it really is very tiring a lot of the time.

I thank the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Lincoln for what was the most important phrase of the debate: the rare dignity of all people. That is what it is. I think too of what the noble Baroness, Lady Morris, said about social mobility. When you are with somebody with a learning disability, they do not care who you are, they do not know who you are, and they do not care what you earn or where you come from. It makes you strip off mask after mask, until you are there in a proper shared humanity—that is what it means.

I am not going to go on—I have never done this before—but I thank all noble Lords for their contributions. I am very grateful.

Motion agreed.