Education: Vocational Education
Baroness Morgan of Ely Excerpts(10 years, 9 months ago)
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Baroness Morgan of Ely (Lab)
My Lords, many further education colleges encourage young people who have already attained five GCSEs at school effectively to resit vocational courses at the same level as GCSEs—level 2—rather than pushing these students to a level 3 —A-level standard—qualification. What steps are the Government taking to give incentives to colleges to push students to progress and to deliver quicker and better the vocational skills that our economy desperately needs?
Special Educational Needs (Direct Payments) (Pilot Scheme) (Extension and Amendment) Order 2014
Baroness Morgan of Ely Excerpts(10 years, 10 months ago)
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The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Schools (Lord Nash) (Con)
My Lords, this order enables the Secretary of State to extend and amend the pilot scheme made under the Special Educational Needs (Direct Payments) (Pilot Scheme) Order 2012 that allows the testing of direct payments for SEN provision in the SEN pathfinder areas. The pilot scheme has demonstrated the potential for SEN direct payments to make a positive—“life-changing”, to quote one parent—impact on families. I have seen first hand the benefits that direct payments can bring. When I visited the Hertfordshire pathfinder I met another parent who used a direct payment to pay for a personal assistant to take her disabled child swimming, allowing her to focus on spending time with her other child. Other examples of the use of direct payments are for transport, one-to-one learning when the child is not well enough to travel to school, personal assistants coming into the classroom or the purchase of equipment. It is this choice and innovation that we are bringing to SEN provision and why, as noble Lords will be aware, we have taken forward the learning from the pilot in provisions for personal budgets in the Children and Families Bill.
The Bill is now reaching the end of its journey through your Lordships’ House and through Parliament so it is important to set out why it is also necessary to amend and extend this pilot scheme. There are two key reasons. First, extension is necessary to allow the arrangements established with families under the pilot to continue until the provisions in the Children and Families Bill are commenced. Extension will also provide a transitional period, up to the end of September 2015, to move these families from statements on to the new system of education, health and care plans and the associated offer of a personal budget that entails. As I have already said, many of the families that have taken advantage of the scheme have seen real benefits. Failure to extend the order would mean that these families would need to revert to more traditional, and in their cases, less effective forms of service delivery.
Secondly, the extension will allow the authorities named in the order to enter into new arrangements with families and refine how best to operate SEN direct payments right up to the point of implementation of the reform programme. This will ensure that we have the best possible evidence base ahead of implementation. It will inform both the work of the personal budget champions and the thematic evaluation of personal budgets, including direct payments, being undertaken as part of the evaluation of the pathfinder programme and due to be published in the summer. Removal of the right to request a direct payment under paragraph 3 of the schedule to the 2012 order after 31 August 2014 will provide for the formal closure of the pilot to new entrants from 1 September 2014. I should stress that all other articles in the pilot scheme remain unaltered.
To conclude, this is a simple transitional provision that bridges the gap between the end of the pilot scheme as set out in the 2012 order and the introduction of the reforms as set out in the Children and Families Bill. As such, I hope that noble Lords will give it their support.
Baroness Morgan of Ely (Lab)
My Lords, I am sure that all noble Lords will welcome any effort to develop a system that would lead to improvements in the effectiveness of the provision of services to individuals with special education needs. The educational requirements of individuals with special educational needs are, by definition, likely to be varied and need to be special. Intuition would tell us that these needs may best be fulfilled by services that are chosen and arranged specifically for each individual. Placing the responsibility of managing funds with families gives decision-making power to those who care most about their children—parents or carers with children with special education needs. That can, in principle, help to improve the suitability of services and result in better educational outcomes.
When advocating autonomy for those individuals receiving direct payments, we do, however, need to bear in mind a few issues. It must be ensured that the diversion of funds to personal budgets does not lead to a reduction in the standards and quality of services which we know are delivered by most well organised local authorities at the moment. This is a known concern of many parents and professionals in the sector itself. We must also be assured that the quality of outcomes for those young people on the direct payments scheme will not fall below the standards we have learnt to expect from service delivery by local authorities.
Although the principle of allocating discretion to families is a positive one, there are no guarantees that providing families with the discretion to organise their own services will necessarily deliver adequate educational outcomes. Reports from the ongoing pilot have suggested that real benefits to the young people concerned and their families occur mainly from the enhanced control regarding the organisation of transport. Further evidence from the pilot is needed to ensure that, if this is indeed the case, benefits are restricted to the organisation of transport. We need to see that the scheme is sufficiently justified.
Some individuals may have no desire to organise their own service provision. This may be due to the individual already receiving suitable support of a high standard or because the family concerned feels unable to arrange a better service itself. In such cases, the direct payments scheme must not be made mandatory. In cases where direct payments are requested, sufficient support must be made available to ensure that individuals who may experience difficulty with implementing their own arrangements can do so effectively. Concerns were raised regarding this issue when the Minister of State for the Department for Education shared the worries expressed by respondents to the initial consultation regarding these proposals.
Assurances must also be given to taxpayers regarding the value for money provided by the direct payments initiative. When specialist services are provided from small markets with limited choice, such as those which exist in the provision of transport for people with a physical disability, it must be ensured that a limited market does not inflate prices. The interests of the taxpayer must also be safeguarded from the inevitable fragmentation of budgets caused by dividing funds between service providers, which may cause losses from diseconomies of scale.
However, the need for an extension is accepted. The slow progress which the direct payments pilot scheme has experienced has necessitated its extension. It also makes sense to wait until the Children and Families Bill has gone through its legislative process. If more time is needed for the assessment of this scheme before a potential larger-scale rollout, the time must be used to develop confidence in the practical successes of devolving SEN provision budgets. If this confidence is instilled, progress can be made in realising the implementation of the scheme on a countrywide scale, but it would make sense to wait until the pilot has had an extended run.
When the Secretary of State lays his report before both Houses, after the conclusions of this pilot study are produced, the concerns aired by the critics of this piece of legislation will need to be considered with respect and reason. In the mean time, it is essential that the concerns which have been highlighted today are borne in mind. Further evidence gathered from the pilot scheme must demonstrate that the direct payments method for SEN provision indeed provides value for money and delivers high-quality services, yielding acceptable educational outcomes for all young people with special educational needs.
Children and Families Bill
Baroness Morgan of Ely Excerpts(11 years ago)
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Baroness Howarth of Breckland
My Lords, I have a simple question about this. Having been sick last week, I may have missed the answer in all the mass of information that usefully comes from the department. Again, it is a question about implementation, as my questions usually are. When anything classified as social care and health becomes an education provision, it will be financed. However, how will it be financed in a college for disabled youngsters where there are myriad therapists, who might be physiotherapists or speech therapists, or where the youngsters may have a residential social care provision in the same place but that is linked to the education? That is rather crucial—almost more crucial than the legislation.
Baroness Morgan of Ely (Lab)
My Lords, I speak in support of Amendment 18 in my name and that of the noble Lord, Lord Ramsbotham.
There are countless examples of parents around the country who have had to fight for special educational provision for their children. Of course, this is much easier to pursue for middle-class, articulate parents compared with those from poorer households, but the need for clarity about what provision is available and who should provide these services is essential for all parents who need extra help for their children, irrespective of background.
The problem is that, rather than clarifying the position on special educational provision and ensuring the Government’s stated intention of carrying the current established position into this Bill, the wording of the clause in the original draft set a higher threshold than that which currently exists—a danger identified by the sector and expert lawyers. Therefore, healthcare provision and social care provision could be defined only as special educational provision if,
“made wholly or mainly for the purposes of ... education or training”.
If the healthcare provision or social care provision did not directly enhance the education or training of the child, it could not be considered to be special educational provision; it would simply be defined as healthcare provision or social care provision.
I shall not go into the details here of why that makes a difference, as those were rehearsed in Committee, but, thankfully, the Government have acknowledged the concerns of Peers and have introduced new wording as a result of opposition to the initial draft. There was still, however, concern around this new wording, which is why the Government have moved even further to amend the language.
We have come a long way on this clause. We are grateful to the Government for that and we would like to recognise the work of the noble Lord, Lord Ramsbotham, the Royal College of Speech and Language Therapists and David Wolfe QC. On the whole, I welcome the fact that, on this issue the Government have listened to our concerns, and I, too, will be happy not to press our amendment.
Baroness Northover
My Lords, I thank the noble Countess, Lady Mar, for putting the noble Lord’s case. He is indeed a doughty fighter, as we all know. I am mightily relieved that he is pleased that the Government have put forward this amendment and that he is therefore happy for his amendment not to be moved.
I also thank the noble Baroness, Lady Morgan, for what she has said. I assure the noble Baroness, Lady Howarth, that joint commissioning will ensure that arrangements are in place to cover the financing. I will write to her with all the details.
At this stage of the evening, I am extremely glad that we all appear to agree. Clearly, it will very soon be Christmas.
Schools: Non-attending Pupils
Baroness Morgan of Ely Excerpts(11 years, 1 month ago)
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Baroness Morgan of Ely (Lab)
My Lords, I should like to pay tribute to the noble Baroness, Lady Brinton, for ensuring that this important issue is debated today. I should also like to pay tribute to the tremendous efforts made by schools and teachers up and down the country, who work tirelessly to educate our children, often despite the efforts of many ill disciplined and disruptive students to put them off.
Every child matters, yet there are times when exclusions become necessary. The child, however, must not then be deprived of education. We on this side of the House understand the critical importance of discipline. It provides a bedrock for sound learning. We also understand that there are times when there is a need, for the sake of discipline, to exclude pupils from school. The vast majority of teachers do everything they can to ensure that pupils get the best start possible. I particularly applaud the efforts of teachers and head teachers on the reduction in the number of children who have been officially excluded from school over the past few years.
We are, however, concerned by the increasing number of children who have been informally excluded—or, to put it another way, illegally excluded—from school. I say “illegally” because the rules on informal exclusions are absolutely clear. The rules state that if a child is excluded from school in any way at any time, this should be formally recorded. A due process has to be followed, which includes a referral to the board of governors. A child can be legally excluded only for disciplinary reasons. Head teachers must tell parents and carers formally, in writing, why their child has been excluded and for how long.
Guidelines have also been set for what kind of activity would lead to exclusion. It states clearly that a school cannot exclude children because it feels it does not have the resources to deal with them or because it believes a child needs time to cool off. The guidelines specify that any exclusion of a pupil, even for a short period, must be made and recorded formally. Are the rules being followed? The answer to this, according to the Children’s Commissioner for England, which published a report on this issue in April, and according to the charity Contact a Family, which published a separate report in February, is a resounding no. The Children’s Commissioner for England has found evidence to suggest that one in 10 secondary schools is forcing pupils to stay away from lessons but failing to record the punishment formally in the register.
The problem seems to be that many head teachers simply do not realise that asking parents to collect a child at lunchtime to cool off, or to keep them at home for a few days, counts as exclusion. There is increasing evidence to suggest that head teachers use this as a method to exclude children for minor misdemeanours, such as larking around in the classroom, breaking uniform policy or a bad haircut. Some academies are attempting to avoid scrutiny of their exclusions by external independent appeals panels and are refusing to hear appeals from parents. That right has been removed. Part of the problem is that we cannot be sure of the scale of the problem. Is the Department for Education collecting figures or monitoring local authorities’ and academies’ performance on this issue?
According to the Children’s Commissioner, the scale of illegal exclusions is enormous. Who is affected by this? As the noble Baroness, Lady Brinton, mentioned, children with special educational needs, disabled and bullied children and poor children feel the brunt of these exclusions. According to the charity Contact a Family, 22% of disabled children are illegally excluded at least once a week and 15% are illegally excluded every day for part of the day. Pupils with special educational needs are eight times more likely to be permanently excluded than their peers. Pupils with SEN statements are seven times more likely to be excluded while those without statements are nine times more likely to be excluded. More than two-thirds of all permanently excluded children have some form of identified SEN. It is clear that informal exclusions now follow the same pattern.
Of course, it is not just the children who are affected. Parents also suffer as they often feel constantly on call. Many have to drop everything to pick up their children. That means it is impossible for them to hold down a job, forcing them into further poverty, according to the Children’s Society. Parents are often afraid to take on the school and challenge illegal exclusions because of the impact that might have on their child’s school record.
If we know this is happening, why is nothing being done about it? Who is responsible for enforcing these rules? Ofsted is the lead body responsible for policing these policies but its sanctions on the issue are mixed in with an assessment of the school as a whole. It would seem highly unlikely under the present system that this one issue would have a dramatic impact on the overall assessment of the school. It is very difficult for Ofsted even to know that these temporary exclusions are happening as they are not recorded. Local authorities have a duty to provide full-time education to children, but in the face of tremendous budget cuts imposed by the coalition Government, the resources that local authorities have to police this problem and to track these cases are being put under increasing pressure. There is a responsibility to educate but the follow-up of excluded children is sporadic at best. If the issue is as large as the Children’s Commissioner suggests, and if we know that these actions are illegal, how does the Minister intend to tackle this issue? Currently, it seems as if there are very few sanctions for illegal exclusions.
It is right to dwell on the consequences of illegal exclusions on children. Informal exclusion means that children are more likely to fall through the education net. If local authorities are not informed, children are unlikely to be given the statutory schooling that they have a right to receive. Once children fall behind, it is very hard for them to catch up and they are likely to become even more disruptive. Their chances of finding a job are diminished and they are forced on to the state and the taxpayer for support. Fixing this problem early is therefore an economic imperative for the country.
Could the Minister answer the following questions? Does he agree that head teachers and teachers should be given training and guidance on the rules, so that they are aware that informal exclusions are in fact illegal? Part of the reason for unofficial exclusions from school is the lack of the teachers’ ability to instil discipline and manage behaviour. These skills are taught to teachers with teaching qualifications but we are deeply worried that the Government are allowing unqualified teachers into schools on a permanent basis who have not had this training. Does the Minister believe that we should look to best practice and encourage schools to ensure the professional development of school leaders, teachers and trainees, including formal teaching qualifications that teach strategies to create a good learning environment and prevent exclusions?
Will the Government reinstate the independent appeals panel for illegal exclusions? The Education Act 2011 removed the right of parents to appeal to an independent appeals panel against permanent exclusion. That has been replaced by an independent review panel with reduced powers that cannot require a school to reinstate a pupil it judges to have been unfairly excluded. Will the Government issue further, more specific guidance on the principles of exclusion thresholds? For example: “Exclusions should happen only to protect the health and safety of pupils and prevent disruption of learning”. This would stop schools excluding children for having a bad haircut or for other trivial reasons. That is happening today in our society.
As I mentioned at the start, schools should be congratulated on the reduction in the number of formal exclusions over recent years but there is a danger that the problem is simply being displaced to children being informally excluded from schools. The Government need to nip this issue in the bud and save these children from a life of disruption and exclusion. That will not happen unless there is a sanction against those who transgress the rules.
Children and Families Bill
Baroness Morgan of Ely Excerpts(11 years, 1 month ago)
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Baroness Morgan of Ely (Lab)
I will speak, on behalf of my noble friends Lady Jones and Lady Hughes, to Amendments 237, 239 and 240 in their names.
I have listened patiently for weeks to the deliberations of this Committee and have been very impressed with the standard of expertise and knowledge. I have been asked to speak to these amendments relating to childminders and childcare agencies because, when we started to discuss this, I became very animated. I felt that noble Lords were all at the grandparent stage while I am still at the mother stage. Having served as an MEP, rushing off to Brussels every week while my children were very young, and now abandoning them again to come to your Lordships’ House, I confess that I am utterly dependent on my childminder, Margaret. There are hundreds of thousands of other parents in the same situation. We all, of course, want the best for our children. We need to feel confident that they are in a safe and secure environment, especially if we are not there to protect them. Getting this right is critical, not just for the well-being of the children, but for the peace of mind of countless parents throughout the land and to ensure respect for the profession.
I will focus on the issue of childminder agencies, as mentioned in Clause 74. It is essential that a high standard of care is maintained and important to note that there have been many improvements over the years. In 2008, the early years foundation stage was a welcome development in the professionalisation of childminders, leading to increasing standards and better qualifications. However, I remember watching my own childminder despair at the paperwork that mounted up; a new and challenging part of her job. The purpose of this clause is the introduction of agencies which would take away the paperwork burden and allow childminders to concentrate on what they do best. At first, encouraging childminders to join agencies might seem like a sensible suggestion, as these agencies can give advice, share best practice and provide a useful network as well as lessening the burden of paperwork. The problem is that, however competent the agencies are, much of the paperwork involved is about observation, assessment and planning for the individual child. So I am not quite sure what they will bring to the party, other than an extra tier of bureaucracy and significant additional cost. This goes directly against the Government’s recently published paper More Affordable Childcare.
These costs will, inevitably, be passed on from childminders to parents, adding to their burden. Childcare costs are one of the key issues causing the cost of living crisis under which so many are currently suffering. In addition, as this is a dramatic departure from the current system, it would make sense to wait until this proposal has been properly piloted and consulted on, prior to putting it in the Bill. We seem to be putting the cart before the horse here. This is the general gist of what we are trying to address with Amendment 237.
On inspection, childminders are currently inspected by Ofsted, operating under the early years foundation stage statutory guidance. I want to probe further what the Government are suggesting in new Section 51D of the Childcare Act 2006:
“Inspections of early years childminder agencies”.
The new system would allow childminders to register with, and be inspected by, a childminder agency, rather than by Ofsted. Ofsted would not be responsible for assessing the quality of care of the individual childminders registered with the agency; rather, it would inspect the quality and support provided by the agency.
My concerns are threefold. If the nature of your private business—the agency—is to attract more people to use your service but you are at the same time policing the people who pay you on the quality of the service that they provide, there is a clear conflict of interest. Paid, privatised regulation should be regarded with a degree of suspicion. Is there not a chance that standards of care will be reduced if agencies are inspecting their own people? How can the Government ensure standards when individual childminders are not inspected? We all know the pressures that Ofsted is already under. In time, it is likely that fewer and fewer individual childminders, signed up to agencies, will be spot-checked.
Under the current system, the costs of inspection are borne by the local authority. In future, these costs will inevitably and dramatically fall on parents. The costs of childcare are already seriously impeding many from returning to the workforce, in addition to putting immense pressure on already hard-pressed families. Is the Government seriously suggesting that, in future, they will have to cough up significant extra money to pay for childminders to register with an agency? We are creating a two-tier system, and a lack of reference in new Section 51D to individual childminders being inspected seems to underline this. Amendments 239 and 240 draw attention to this two-tier system, and ensure that all childminders are treated equally, with no temptation for the agencies to cherry-pick which childminders they inspect.
The introduction of a two-tier inspection system could dramatically increase the cost of childcare for already hard-pressed families. Before launching into such dramatic changes which have not been well tested or consulted upon, surely we should see if they work through properly constructed pilot programmes which are endorsed by the profession and by the parents they impact on. I beg to move.
Baroness Walmsley
My Lords, I have considerable concerns about this clause, which is why I have given notice of my intention to oppose the Question that the clause stand part of the Bill, to initiate a probing debate. As I understand it, the Government’s objectives are to recruit more people to childminding, to improve quality and to make childcare more affordable for parents. Those are all laudable objectives with which I have no argument. I am yet to be convinced that these objectives will be achieved by setting up for-profit childminder agencies. I realise that it would be voluntary for childminders to sign up to an agency. If that was where it ended, that would be all very well. However, I fear that the existence of these agencies could affect non-participating childminders, parents and children. That is of great concern to me. I am aware that pilots are being carried out, but this measure will be in place before they have reported. In addition, when the pilots are assessed will that assessment cover just the agencies themselves, how many childminders they sign up and how satisfied the parents are, or will it go wider than that and study whether there has been any adverse effect on other early years provision in the area?
Baroness Walmsley
My Lords, before the noble Baroness, Lady Morgan, withdraws her amendment, as I assume she will, I will just make a point about the Minister’s analogy that not every schoolteacher is inspected by Ofsted, but a sample from the school. We have a very different situation here. Childminders are working on their own, behind closed doors and on their own premises. Teachers in schools are all on the same premises and their work is quite visible and open to everybody to see. When I did my teaching practice, I was in an open-plan laboratory and my supervisor was the other side of the bookcase. It was terrifying. The fact is that it is very easy to know, in a school, if a teacher is not doing the right thing or is just not up to standard. It is not the same thing at all and I really would not accept that analogy.
Baroness Morgan of Ely
My Lords, I thank the Minister for addressing some of those issues. I would like to pick up on a number of them. First, he suggested that childminders working together makes sense. Yes, absolutely that makes sense, but informal networks exist already. Local authorities are doing a lot of this work already. It also seems very odd that we are still in the middle of a pilot and are putting something into the Bill when we have no idea whether it will work. Even if it does, the sample we have is just six private companies out of 20. When the whole point of this is the suggestion that we move to a private sector approach, having just six out of 20 does not seem to make much sense.
The Minister mentioned that Ofsted can inspect any of these childminders. The question is: will it? The cost of inspection according to Ofsted is £701 per childminder visit. That is quite a lot when Ofsted is already under pressure financially. I am very disappointed that the Minister did not address the issue of the conflict of interest, because that is absolutely fundamental. If a private provider inspects childminders who are paying it, there has to be a conflict of interest. At this time of austerity, when people are really up against it financially, to suggest that costs will come down is fairy-tale land. The assumption that the Minister makes is that a childminder does not have enough children, and that they can go to an agency that will have a whole pool of children they can pick up. That is unlikely to be the case because we know that there is already a shortage of childminders. The probability is that costs will increase for childminders and they will pass that cost directly on to parents. That concerns me but—
The Earl of Listowel
What would stop the Government from injecting funds into local authorities to enable them to build more networks? Rather than going down the agency route to bring these childminders together, what obstacles would there be to a push to enable more local authorities to build on the networks they already have? Why would that not meet the Government’s aim of building the capacity of childminders?
Schools: Dyslexia
Baroness Morgan of Ely Excerpts(12 years, 9 months ago)
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Lord Hill of Oareford
I agree with my noble friend about the importance of teacher training in order to address these issues and he is quite right to say that we need to make sure that there are teachers with those skills in primary schools. The new standards we are setting for QTS include an emphasis on the ability to teach a range of special needs not specifically around dyslexia. I understand the particular point he makes, but so far we have opted to take a broader approach and then support teachers with improved materials and networks of either teaching schools or charities. However, I take his point about the importance of making sure that primary schools have the skills that they need.
Baroness Morgan of Ely
Is the Minister aware that, in order to diagnose dyslexia, very often parents are asked to pay privately for that diagnostic testing to take place at a cost of £500? That is way beyond the means of many individual parents. We are therefore creating a two-tier system for those people who are able to afford that diagnostic testing and go privately, because it is not being done in many of our primary schools at the moment.
Lord Hill of Oareford
One of the issues that underlies this is the question of what diagnostic test is appropriate. One point that came out of the Rose review is that it did not recommend a specific diagnostic text because there are differences of opinion about which is the most effective. In terms of the support that is available, that review talked about a tiered approach to identify children with dyslexia and give them the support they need—through the SENCO and then other support that might be possible. I understand the noble Baroness’s basic point about funding. The funding that we have put into special needs and central support through local authorities is still in place, but I understand the point that the noble Baroness makes.