Children and Families Bill

Baroness Northover Excerpts

Monday 28th October 2013 Grand Committee

[Lord Ramsbotham]

I just say to the noble Baroness and the noble Lord, Lord Storey, that I was referring to the assessment required now in the early years foundation stage, which must be carried out by health visitors. I was saying that that is a compulsory healthcare test. I was mentioning that the healthcare visitor to whom we spoke in Northern Ireland mentioned the value that she had had from being trained by the speech and language therapist to identify the particular triggers for speech and language difficulties, which I believe ought to be common practice everywhere.

[Baroness Northover (LD)]

My Lords, this debate has covered the important issue of SEN in early years settings, and noble Lords have been probing a perceived gap in the legislation in that regard. Clearly, as noble Lords have said, many of the duties in Part 3 apply only to maintained nursery schools, not to other early years providers, which has led to concerns that children in playgroups and independent nurseries or with childminders might not have their special educational needs met. We reassure noble Lords that that is not the case. Duties are in place throughout the Bill and through the Childcare Act 2006 which should ensure that special educational needs are identified and addressed in early years, wherever a child is.

I point the noble Baroness, Lady Jones, who I realise leapt in having not realised that she was about to deal with this amendment, to page 70 of the draft guidance, which is on the role of the SENCO in early years provision, so that she can have a look through that.

Amendments 116 and 108 seek to include early years provision within the local offer. We absolutely agree that this should be the case. Perhaps when I have explained some of these areas the noble Lord, Lord Ramsbotham, will be reassured and will want to see whether that meets most of the concerns of those who were advising him.

Schedule 1 to the draft Special Educational Needs (Local Offer) Regulations 2014 already makes clear that the local offer must include special educational provision from,

“providers of relevant early years education”.

These providers are explicitly referred to in paragraph 1(a) of that schedule. The regulations also require the local offer to include the arrangements that such providers have for “identifying … special educational needs”, in paragraph 4(a), and for,

“securing the services, provision and equipment required by children”,

with SEN, in paragraph 4(c).

Relevant early years education is defined as that childcare which is provided to meet the duties under Section 7 of the Childcare Act 2006. Noble Lords may be reassured that this would include all local authority-funded early education for two, three or four year-olds, whatever the status of the provider. It is not limited to maintained nurseries and 96% of three and four year-olds access such early education through local authority funding, so I hope the noble Lord, Lord Ramsbotham, is reassured that non-maintained early years providers are already included. We share his concern that children are identified as early as possible. This is particularly important in areas of disadvantage, where the current two year-old offer of 15 hours’ free childcare per week is targeted.

Amendment 128 would require the local authority to use its best endeavours to identify children with SEN in early years provision, and then to secure the relevant services for them. In relation to the concerns of my noble friend Lady Perry, I know from the Department of Health that this issue has been picked up there. I assure her that there is cross-government working in this regard. We recognise the importance of health service involvement in identifying very young children who may have SEN as soon as possible. That is why Clause 24, which my noble friend may want to look at, provides for health bodies to tell local authorities about young children under compulsory school age who may have SEN. It is also why we are training an additional 4,200 health visitors by 2015 to help improve early identification. I hope that my noble friend finds that reassuring.

The Government want to reassure noble Lords that local authorities must ensure that all providers that they fund in the maintained, private, voluntary and independent sectors effectively meet the needs of children with SEN and disabilities. Local authorities should remove barriers in access to early education and work with parents to give each child support to fulfil its potential. All early years providers, regardless of how they are funded, must follow the welfare requirements set out in the EYFS framework to have and to implement a policy and procedures for children with SEN and disabilities. This should include how the needs of these children will be met and how reasonable adjustments will be made. Providers are also required to assess children regularly and to keep parents informed. They must consider whether a child has a special educational need or disability which requires specialist support. They should link with families and help them to access relevant services from other agencies as appropriate. These requirements are reflected in the draft SEN code of practice, which also gives practical guidance to early years providers on responding to special educational needs. I hope that the noble Lord, Lord Ramsbotham, will look carefully at that.

Amendment 238, again tabled by the noble Lord, seeks to place requirements on childminder agencies, including a requirement to appoint a SENCO with the prescribed qualifications, and a regulation-making power to set out requirements on how childminders registered with an agency should support children with SEN. I heard the reason he gave for taking that route, and I hope that to some extent what I have already said has reassured him that there is not quite the gap he is seeking to plug here. I also note what my noble friend Lord Storey said about this. The provision to create childminder agencies in Part 4 is an enabling one. We do not think it would be helpful to try to tie these providers into agencies. I am sure we will hear arguments to the contrary when we get to Part 4.

Returning to the key issue of early years childminders, we agree that childminders need also to look out for children in their care. Clearly, they need to be subject to the same duties and expectations whether they are registered with an agency or independently registered with Ofsted. The Government’s intention is that the agency-registered childminders should follow the same guidance on SEN as other types of early years providers, as part of that jigsaw of involvement with young children.

Page 70 of the draft code of practice, which I have just referred to, sets out guidance on the role of the SENCO in early years. It makes clear that the SENCO role may be shared between childminders in the network and suggests a similar approach be applied to agencies. For most early years settings, the SENCO is not required to have a particular qualification. Currently, and in the draft code, only SENCOs in schools and maintained nurseries must hold specific qualifications, including qualified teacher status. We feel that it would not be appropriate to impose additional burdens on childminder agencies over and above those in place for other early years settings. The framework provided by the early years foundation stage and the SEN code of practice makes this unnecessary.

Amendment 75, tabled by the noble Baroness, Lady Jones, seeks to require local authorities to appoint sufficient area SENCOs to support early years providers, drawing attention to an important role. As my noble friend the Minister mentioned in a debate last week, page 70 of the draft SEN code of practice states that,

“local authorities should ensure that there is sufficient expertise and experience amongst local early years providers to support children with SEN”.

It goes on to outline the role of area SENCOs in the early years. By including the role in statutory guidance for the first time, we are recognising its importance and creating a clear expectation about the support that local authorities should provide for children in early education.

Turning to Amendment 79, we fully endorse the importance of early identification of SEN, which this amendment seeks to secure. One of the main aims of the reforms we are debating is to seek to ensure that children and young people have their needs identified earlier—whether through district nurses, as my noble friend Lady Perry indicated, or through others involved with young children—so that the right support is put in place quickly.

The education providers listed in Clause 29(2) have a duty under Clause 62 to use their,

“best endeavours to secure that the special educational provision called for by the pupil’s or student’s special educational needs is made”.

Actively identifying special educational needs is an integral part of this duty. The draft SEN code of practice makes this absolutely clear. Chapter 6 of the code requires schools to assess pupils on entry, make regular assessments of pupils progress and ensure that teachers are equipped to spot potential special educational needs quickly.

I have perhaps been too comprehensive. However, I hope that I have been sufficiently comprehensive to address the questions and needs of all those who are rightly concerned about this area. I hope that my response reassures noble Lords that effective duties are in place because we agree with what noble Lords say they are seeking to achieve. We will continue to work with the Communication Trust and other expert organisations to ensure that the SEN code of practice provides effective guidance on all these issues. I therefore hope that the noble Baroness will be happy to withdraw her amendment.

[Baroness Jones of Whitchurch]

My Lords, I thank all noble Lords who have spoken in this debate. I think that we all share the common ambition to improve the scope and quality of early years provision and to make sure that special educational needs are identified at the earliest possible time, as we said at the outset. I think that there is common cause there.

In several of the contributions it was asked who should be responsible for some of that identification. We feel that early years area SENCOs in the model that we have proposed could be the people to take on that responsibility, although I understand that everybody else whom noble Lords have mentioned could also play a role in that. That model has already been developed by local authorities as a way of taking on some of that responsibility, and it is important that the people in those posts are properly trained and supported. I was slightly disappointed by what the Minister said about not requiring them to be trained and qualified, because it seems to me that we have already identified a skills lack among some of these people. This is an opportunity to address that lack, and it will be a shame if we do not embrace it when we have the opportunity to do so.

[Baroness Northover]

I am sorry to interrupt the noble Baroness. Of course, these proposals build on what the previous Government decided to do. As I said in my response, that was the arrangement that existed before. However, we have taken it a step further, in that it is in the draft statutory guidance, and I hope that that will be welcomed by noble Lords.

[Baroness Jones of Whitchurch]

I was picking up the particular point about qualifications. As the Minister has already identified, I have not yet read page 70 and I was trying to do a bit of speed-reading. I obviously need to reflect on that in a little more detail before we come back to debate this further in the House and, when I have done some more reading, I shall write to the noble Baroness if I have any more questions. In the mean time, I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.

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[Lord Ramsbotham]

My Lords, I shall speak to my Amendments, 89 and 92 to 97, and add my support to Amendment 100, mainly because it becomes very relevant when we come to Clause 70, dealing with people in detention.

My other amendments are to do with something I find odd about Clause 26. Although on the face of it local authorities and partner health bodies are required to make, have regard to and keep under review joint commissioning arrangements, there is no obligation on them to operate any of those arrangements, let alone to reach agreement. That seems very peculiar. Even when they operate the arrangements and reach agreement, the resulting provision is limited to what they agree to be reasonably required.

I go back to my amendment to Clause 21(5), because, as I mentioned then, health bodies may well argue that their position is constrained by what they consider necessary. Given how many such bodies apparently give very low priority to speech, language and communication needs and the provision of speech and language therapists, that might mean that little or no speech language therapy would be provided for children or young people other than those who are on EHC plans. This brings us back to the problem of the vast majority of children with these needs who are not on those plans.

Clause 26 does not allow the assumption that children without plans will get what they require; nor does it mention any requirement to publicise what arrangements and agreements are available for parents or the people affected; and it does nothing to ensure that there is consultation on the joint commissioning arrangements. My amendments are designed to strengthen Clause 26 by making its tone “must” rather than “discuss”.

[Baroness Northover]

My Lords, this group of amendments relates to Clauses 25 and 26, which deal with promoting integration and joint commissioning. These provisions are at the centre of our reforms and I am grateful to noble Lords for their careful consideration of these issues. Children and young people with special educational needs need integrated services. Too often they have to tell their story over and again, and too often they or their parents struggle to navigate a system that makes no sense either to them or to the professionals who are supposed to be helping them. In this mini-debate we have had an echo of the discussions we had on both the Health Bill and the Care Bill, where noble Lords were very keen, as were the Government, to take forward better integration and working together across these areas. Noble Lords who have just come from the Care Bill will be extremely well aware of how the Government have sought to take this forward, addressing how people have so often fallen between the cracks. This, too, is part of the attempt to ensure that those with special educational needs are better supported and that the authorities responsible for them work more closely together.

These clauses seek to tackle those issues head on. The integration duty sits alongside duties for a local authority and its local partners to co-operate with each other. I remember extremely clearly, as other noble Lords no doubt will, how integration, as debated in the Health Bill, had to be part of the new arrangements for the health service. This echoes much of that. It links closely to the joint commissioning clause that provides the statutory framework to enable partners to work together effectively to deliver a better experience for the child or young person and their families, and support improved outcomes. Joint commissioning sets out the framework for key elements, such as the local offer, education, health and care plan assessments, and personal budgets. It seeks to improve both the working relationships between local authorities and health bodies, and the provision to children and young people with special educational needs. It requires the local authority and health bodies to establish clear procedures for making decisions and, in particular, to agree what support is needed locally and which agency will deliver it. Crucially, they must agree how they will resolve disputes between partners, as well as how they will deal collectively with complaints concerning education, health and care provision.

The new draft SEN code of practice’s chapter on joint commissioning has developed a great deal, and I hope it may help to reassure noble Lords to know that it puts great store on the importance of making decisions in joint commissioning arrangements—an issue to which the noble Lord, Lord Ramsbotham, has just referred. It specifies that the arrangements should be robust enough to ensure that all partners are clear about who is responsible for what, who the decision-makers are across education, health and care and how partners will hold each other to account where there is a dispute. It recognises the importance of getting elected members and chief executives across education, health and social care on board, and recommends that the arrangements for children and young people with SEN should be specifically accountable to councillors and senior commissioners. It recognises that local accountability can take the form of a programme board, acting as a bridge between the local authority’s education and social care leadership and health partners.

It also reflects that health bodies must work with the local authority in commissioning integrated, personalised services and designing the local offer, including ensuring that relevant contracts with providers reflect the needs of the local population. Local authorities, clinical commissioning groups and NHS England should develop effective ways of harnessing the views of their local communities so that commissioning decisions on services for those with SEN are shaped by people’s experiences and aspirations. The dovetailing of the SEN reform clauses with the NHS reforms is central. The NHS mandate requires clinical commissioning groups to consider the needs of children and young people with SEN and disabilities, so we see immediately the crossover. The Health and Social Care Act reforms require local authorities and clinical commissioning groups to participate in the health and well-being board and to produce a joint strategic needs assessment and a joint health and well-being strategy that sets out how local needs will be met. So the needs are to be identified, and plans have to be put in place as to how they are met.

The health and well-being board has a duty—and I well remember it—to encourage integrated working. For the purpose of advancing the health and well-being of the people in its area, it must encourage people who arrange for the provision of health or social care services in the area to work in an integrated manner. As I said, the Care Bill has been taking that further forward and making it a reality. I hope that that context helps when looking at how we are trying to tackle the needs of these particularly vulnerable children.

I heard what my noble friend Lady Sharp said about the probing nature of her amendment. As ever, she probes extremely effectively. She is seeking to explore how these new arrangements will work in practice, and obviously she is absolutely right to do that.

My noble friend wondered whether SENCOs would have too much on their plate. Since 2009, the Government have funded more than 10,000 new SENCOs to study for the National Award for SEN Coordination. We will support a further 800 places in 2013-14 and this will help them in their important role in linking with other agencies, such as health and social care. I hope that that helps to take this matter forward.

Many of the amendments in this group reflect an apparent desire to puts lots of detail in the Bill. This is an argument with which everyone here will be very familiar—whether it is necessary to specify certain things in the Bill in order to make sure that certain things happen. I am sure that we are all seeking to go in the same direction, which is to achieve what the Bill sets out to do. From noble Lords’ probing as to whether it is going to be delivered by the Bill as it is, I certainly sense that there is agreement on that.

However, noble Lords will also be familiar with the fact that if you specify in great detail in a Bill, you can inadvertently exclude things that you have not included. That is why there is always discussion about what happens in guidance and secondary legislation and so on, and that is why I am so pleased that we have the SEN guidance. It is comprehensive and, I hope, addresses a number of issues that noble Lords are concerned about. From that guidance, your Lordships can see how the Bill translates into what we intend in practice.

As noble Lords will appreciate, we feel that there is a danger that if too much is specified in the Bill, that will then hinder the kind of flexibility that may also be required at a local level. Noble Lords who heard the pathfinder organisations, which came to address us the other day, probably share my feeling that the often very imaginative and creative ways in which they were going about their work and the way they were working with other organisations in their local areas to address the needs of the children were very impressive. One would not wish to do anything that stifled that. One would wish to support them in taking that forward. The aims of what one is seeking to achieve and the details being spelt out in the guidance—

[Baroness Howarth of Breckland]

I have not spoken in this debate but I should like to ask the noble Baroness a question. The thing that concerns me greatly as a practitioner is the variableness of how co-operation takes place across the country. In some places, certainly where there are special projects such as pathfinders, it works well, but in my experience some authorities do not make timely decisions, which can mean that placements are not agreed, and again I refer to my experience in adult colleges for severely disabled young people. If a local authority cannot agree between its own social services provision and its education provision, how does it then hope to get co-ordination across the piece?

I probe only because of my anxiety that we get this right. I agree that it is not always good to have too much detail in a Bill, but how through the guidance will we ensure consistency across the country so that decisions are made appropriately and young people get properly placed, not left in back rooms in homes with distraught parents when a college place could make the difference?

[Baroness Northover]

I hear what the noble Baroness says, and she speaks from a great deal of experience. That is the kind of challenge that has led to us trying to move forward across the board on SEN to ensure that what is provided for children is more uniform and more joined up. If need be, I will write with more detail in response to her but, as I said, what the pathfinders were saying was encouraging. They said that they would link up with those who came after to try to spread best practice. As noble Lords have said, it is often what happens in practice on the ground that may be wanting.

That links up with an issue raised by the noble Baroness, Lady Jones, about how families might hold their local authority and CCGs to account for having arrangements for joint commissioning in place. Ultimately, families could take out a judicial review, but we believe that there are other, more effective ways to hold local bodies to account through local complaints procedures and through NHS England, which will review how CCGs are fulfilling their duties under the NHS mandate. I remind noble Lords that the NHS mandate refers specifically to children and young people with SEN. Therefore, there are those novel routes. That is a new lever.

As the services that result from joint commissioning arrangements will be reflected in the local offer through direct involvement in developing and reviewing it, we hope that that will bring about the opportunity to improve things in the way that both noble Baronesses seek.

Returning to my script, as opposed to my thoughts, Clause 26 requires local authorities and CCGs to keep the arrangements under review, so that service provision will evolve over time and continue to meet the needs of the community that it serves. I have spoken about the pluses and minuses of putting duties in the Bill.

I also note that service providers must take responsibility themselves for how they best use their resources to provide services for children and young people with SEN. I was struck by what the pathfinders said about how often that meant finding a cost-effective way to do that. It was not necessarily the case that working together was more costly. That was interesting to hear.

The final paragraph in Amendment 86 highlights the importance of key workers, which is something that we support and have specifically included in the code of practice. Chapter 3 makes clear that the kind of support that local authorities should offer children, their parents and young people should include key work and support, such as individual casework and informal advocacy, support in attending meetings or contributing to assessment and reviews, and participating in decisions about outcomes.

There was reference to how the NHS provides services and how that might mesh. The fundamental principle of the NHS is that provision should meet reasonably required needs. We have to be careful. There is a wide understanding, certainly among noble Lords, as to why that is the case and why, for example, the previous Government set up NICE to assess treatments and to work out what was effective. An NHS that was free at point of need, universal and comprehensive had to make sure that what it was providing to the population made sense and that clinicians would agree as to what was an effective treatment and so on. All of that is built into the way the NHS has always operated. We therefore have to be careful that we do not inadvertently seek to change that fundamental principle of provision to meet the reasonably required need.

The CCG has a statutory duty to provide services to meet the reasonable needs of those for whom it is responsible. We have a good understanding of that. We may challenge it around the edges, but we do have an understanding of it. It must act consistently with the NHS mandate—

[Lord Ramsbotham]

My Lords, I am sorry to intervene but the point of raising my concern is that, in many areas, speech and language therapy has not traditionally been accorded the impetus that has been required by the NHS. I welcome the talk about health and well-being boards. Indeed, as I mentioned earlier in the debate, because they are the bodies that are in touch with all people from nought to 25, I hope that they will have a role and that it will evolve. Accepting the way in which the NHS operates, I hope that in future it will take account of speech and language therapy needs because of its increasing importance for our children today.

[Baroness Northover]

The noble Lord made a very cogent case before and my noble friend was sympathetic to what he said. It will always be the case that, at any one time, there will be debate as to what is essential, what ought to be provided and what will best help children or any member of the population, and, therefore, debate about what the NHS or any other provision ought to cover. As I said, the noble Lord made a cogent case and my noble friend responded sympathetically, so it is a matter of let us watch this space. As I have mentioned, the NHS mandate includes a specific objective that children and young people with SEN have access to the services set out in their care plans. I hope that is reassuring.

I have referred to pathfinders and the wording in the clause reflects the fact that the parties involved are expected to follow the arrangements made unless there is good reason to depart from them. Allowing that flexibility will enable partnerships to adapt to accommodate unique circumstances or changing priorities locally which the arrangements may not have anticipated.

Noble Lords may be anxious that this flexibility could mean that partners have to have only some of the arrangements in place before achieving any agreement. I hope I can reassure noble Lords that this is not the case and is certainly not the legal effect of these provisions. Clause 26(4) makes it clear that these partnerships have the clear function of securing the care that children with SEN need. Therefore they must be able to agree a clear course of action in every case. This point is backed up by the new draft SEN code of practice.

There may be other elements that I need to address. I turn to the point that the noble Baroness, Lady Jones, made about transparency. We certainly agree with her point about needing transparency for parents but we do not think that we should replicate other legislation in the Bill. I am sure she will be disappointed about that. The place to bring this together, we feel, is in the code of practice, and that is what we have sought to do. Again, that is something that comes up in legislation all the time: should we make reference to previous Acts or should we include it in the new Bill? We feel that the draft code of practice helps to bring everything together very clearly, and I hope that she will accept that.

[Baroness Jones of Whitchurch]

Earlier the Minister made the point that we do not want lots of detail in the Bill and I think that we all understand that you cannot spell out everything in a Bill. However, we thought our amendments on this issue were rather neat and not full of detail. Our proposals, about providing any other provision deemed necessary to meet the special educational needs of the child or young person, were intended to include the family context and so on. That was not about too much detail—obviously the detail can be spelt out in the code—but it was to provide a route in for families to feel that they were included in the Bill. I take the Minister’s point about not having too much detail but I do not think that our amendment could be found guilty of that.

[Baroness Northover]

I was actually thinking more of my noble friend’s amendment. My noble friend Lady Sharp is always clear and to the point, so far be it from me ever to suggest that she might add detail that was best put elsewhere.

The noble Baroness, Lady Howe, spoke about local authorities working across boundaries. I assure her that we agree that, working together, local authorities can secure more cost-effective, high quality provision for children and young people with the most complex needs. Many authorities already have such arrangements in place and we encourage it through the new draft SEN code of practice, which includes, in section 4.4, a specific section on regional collaboration. As the noble Baroness spells out, it is in local authorities’ interest to do so. The provision stipulated in education, health and care plans will reflect individual need and local authorities will have to ensure that it is provided.

The noble Baroness highlighted effectively how there may be just one or two children with particular needs in one area, and it makes a lot of sense to collaborate with those in other areas. That is why Clause 30 sets out that local offers must cover provision outside the local authority area for children and young people for whom the authority is responsible. Making this an explicit part of the local offer will mean that authorities have to take steps to make these arrangements up front, and allow parents to challenge whether the best arrangements are being made. For specific cases, Clause 31 goes further and requires other local authorities to comply with requests for co-operation, as long as doing so does not compromise their own duties. That provides a further spur for local authorities to consider in advance suitable joint arrangements for providing for children and young people with specific needs.

I hope that I have covered most of the points raised by noble Lords. If I have not, then obviously I will write to them. In the mean time, I hope that the noble Baroness will be prepared to withdraw her amendments.

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[The Countess of Mar]

My Lords, I was horrified to be pointed to the report by the Children’s Commissioner, Always Someone Else’s Problem. The executive summary, which I am afraid is all I have had time to read, says:

“We have found evidence of … pupils being excluded without proper procedures being followed; these exclusions are usually for short periods, but may be frequently repeated, meaning that the child misses substantial amounts of education … pupils being placed on extended study leave, on part time timetables, or at inappropriate alternative provision, as a way of removing them from school”.

It goes on to list other examples, which I am sure the Minister is familiar with, but the final one is,

“local authorities failing to deliver their legal responsibility to provide full time alternative education for children from the sixth day of exclusion”.

In the report the Children’s Commissioner says that it is mainly SEN children who are what she calls illegally excluded from school. I am very concerned that local authorities are perhaps not taking due care to ensure that this does not happen in their areas. This is an excellent amendment that would perhaps preclude this sort of thing from happening. From that report, it seems to be happening on a very large scale.

[Baroness Northover]

My Lords, we appreciate the concerns that have prompted the amendments in this group and noble Lords’ determination to ensure that we move things forward for children with special educational needs, and I welcome the opportunity to respond to the discussion. I thank the noble Baroness, Lady Howe, for saying that the local offer has the potential to be transformative for these children.

We understand the reasons why the noble Lords, Lord Low and Lord Touhig, seek the publication of an action plan if the education and social care is deemed insufficient. I assure them that there is already scope in our provisions for children and young people with SEN and their parents, and local providers, to be involved in improving provision where it is insufficient. Clause 19 clearly sets out the guiding principle of the SEN provisions, which is all about putting children, their parents and young people at the heart of what the local authority does. It sets out the importance of involving children, their parents, and young people as fully as possible, and includes the need to support them to achieve the best possible outcomes.

Children and their parents, and young people, are also central to the local offer. Local authorities will be under a duty to review their local offer in Clause 30(5) —noble Lords have made reference to that—and regulation 4 of the draft local offer regulations sets out who they must consult in such a review. Local authorities will also be under a duty to publish comments on the local offer under Clause 30(6). Noble Lords, again, made reference to that.

The noble Lord, Lord Low, was probing on accountability and how the review would then, as it were, have teeth. We understand the noble Lord’s points about accountability, and we will be discussing this in a later group. Perhaps we can return then to how that will be done. However, I would say that the local offer in Clause 30(6) will require local authorities to publish their response to comments that they get from children, their parents and young people, so there is a major incentive there to act.

That is also made clear in Chapter 5 of the code of practice, which says that local authorities should publish an explanation of the action they are taking to respond to the comments. It is not simply a case of publishing what that response is. This brings transparency—a point that the noble Baroness, Lady Jones, made previously—and potential publicity. We must bear in mind that local authorities are themselves accountable to their electorate. In the debate on the previous group, I mentioned other ways in which people could hold local authorities to account. However, I do not think that it is going to be very comfortable for local authorities to have to publish critical comments and to have to justify why they are doing what they are doing. That is certainly worth bearing in mind. As I mentioned, local authorities must consult widely and involve children and young people with SEN and the parents of children with SEN in shaping local provision.

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[Baroness Howarth of Breckland]

May I just ask a question about the funding? Much as local authorities do not like ring-fencing, how will the Government ensure that that funding is properly directed to these services?

[Baroness Northover]

The issue of exactly how to make this as effective as possible is under discussion at the moment, and I am very happy to write to the noble Baroness to spell that out in more detail.

[Baroness Wilkins]

To return to the question of funding, the Government have said a number of times that they are protecting funding for vulnerable families, but that protection is not being carried through at local level. The Government seem to be remarkably complacent about this. Surely action must be taken so that the funding reaches the people who need it.

[Baroness Northover]

I hear what the noble Baroness says. She is a doughty champion in this area. The best thing is if we write explaining what I have just said in further detail. Maybe she would then like to respond so that we can look at that further and get back to her.

[Baroness Wilkins]

I wonder if the Minister would meet with the organisations concerned, which would be far more helpful.

[Baroness Northover]

Being a very low-level Minister, I am not sure how useful that would be for her group. However, I will refer it to my far more significant noble friend. I know that the department is very open to discussions with all interested parties. In the light of that, I hope that she will be reassured.

[Baroness Wilkins]

I welcome that. I thank the Minister.