Education Bill

Baroness Ritchie of Brompton Excerpts

Wednesday 20th July 2011 Grand Committee

[Lord Peston]

My Lords, I have not the faintest idea—I never do—as to how long I am going to speak; I just go on speaking until I get bored with the sound of my own voice. I congratulate my noble friend both on her amendment and on her speech introducing it to us. She supplies what I think the Americans call “the vision thing”, and we are sorely in need of that.

My noble friend Lady Massey said that we have to bear in mind, as central to our vision in education, that all pupils matter and that all pupils matter equally. I take that to be central to what my noble friend is emphasising to us.

We fail too many of our young people, who are convinced that no one in education cares about them and is on their side. Their experience of education precisely gives that to them. There should be someone around locally who cares about them demonstrably and, more to the point, who is absolutely on their side. Therefore, as my noble friend pointed out, how we implement the amendment is not the point at issue; the issue is the vision contained within it.

I hark back to the Education Act 1944, which was based on selection at 11-plus and categorised most pupils on day one of their secondary education. The overwhelming majority were told to regard themselves as failures. The words “failed the 11-plus” were actually used. What a way to go—to have an Act of Parliament that categorises so many people as failures. I regret to say that this Government have not committed themselves to ending that. As my noble friend reminded us, they are, according to the Daily Telegraph, trying to create a set of circumstances in which selection will increase. Certainly, one needs to be told categorically that selection will in no circumstances increase under this Government. No one should be able to increase how many people they select.

I might add, since we are not discussing religion today, that Catholic schools were very much at the forefront of introducing comprehensive education, precisely because they did not want to discriminate between fellow members of their religion. I should have pointed out when we were discussing religious matters the other day that, often, those with religion are at the forefront of doing the right thing. However, we did the right thing and we moved to comprehensive education. I hate to say it, but my interpretation of what this Government are doing is that they are trying to abandon comprehensive education, which is why I strongly support my noble friend in bringing this matter to our attention today. It is the vision of education that matters. We can discuss the details when we report back to their Lordships at another stage.

[Baroness Ritchie of Brompton]

My Lords, I had not intended to speak to the amendment, but I should like to express sympathy with what the noble Baroness, Lady Perry, said. There appears to be some duplication in the amendment, not only of the role of directors of children’s services but possibly of the role and responsibilities of lead members—here, I have to declare an interest as a lead member and my involvement with the Local Government Association. Another layer of bureaucracy could be introduced, so I would not support the amendment.

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Schools (Lord Hill of Oareford)]

My Lords, we have already discussed in Committee the principles that underline the Government’s education reforms: increasing school autonomy, improving the quality—

--- Later in debate ---

[Baroness Massey of Darwen]

My Lords, I shall speak to Amendments 108, 109, 110, 111 and 112 in this group. I also support the remarks of the noble Baroness, Lady Hughes. The noble Baronesses, Lady Hughes and Lady Jones, have pulled out an important thread in this debate about assumptions that individualism in schools will automatically be a good thing. Of course, I am all for excellence in schools, whatever their names, and excellence not just in academic subjects but throughout the school delivery.

However, the Education Bill, as we have heard, amends the Education and Inspections Act 2006 to require local authorities that think that a new school needs to be established to seek proposals for the establishment of an academy. In effect, this introduces a presumption that when local authorities set up new schools they will be academies or free schools. I am not going to go into all that again—I will express a particular concern. This new requirement to prefer academies and free schools is likely to aid the proliferation of state-funded religious academies and free schools, among others. Academies and free schools are particularly attractive, not only to mainstream religious groups but to minority groups. This is because they are largely unregulated and there is nothing to stop groups with extreme agendas from applying to run these state-funded schools. Are we really not concerned about this?

Academies and free schools with a religious character can discriminate against students and parents in their missions and against staff on the grounds of religion or belief. We shall come on to that later. They can also opt out of the national curriculum and choose not to provide even the most basic sex education biology or to teach creationism. I am not trying to dismantle the whole faith-school system—I hope no one is going to accuse me of that. I am simply trying to promote a balance of provision at a local level. I am concerned that this new requirement on local authorities to prefer academies and free schools when creating new schools will lead to a proliferation in largely unregulated and unaccountable state-funded religious schools. These amendments remove the assumption that new schools will be academies and allow greater consideration of local opinion about what types of schools are created. It is all very well to champion parents, but what about championing children and their right to a full education?

[Baroness Ritchie of Brompton]

My Lords, I shall speak to my amendment in this group, Amendment 108A. As has been said, the passage of the Academies Act last year allowed us considerable debate on the merits of the academy system introduced by the previous Government and accelerated by the current one. Academies have become an established part of the education system and I do not want to revisit that debate. Through this probing amendment I wish to raise local government concerns over the ability of the education system to react to local circumstances. Here, I must yet again declare an interest as the chair of the LGA children and young people’s board.

Amendment 108A would alter Schedule 11 to allow it to continue to recognise the Government’s ambition of seeing schools transferred to academy status, but would retain the necessary local flexibility in the school system to allow for local needs to be taken into account and avoid the creation of a potentially burdensome process for establishing new schools.

Schedule 11 creates a requirement for a local authority seeking to establish a new school first to look at setting up an academy. Councils do not object to that first part of the schedule. However, its subsequent provisions establish a process by which the local authority must report to the DfE on the process of establishing that new academy. Further provisions place restrictions on the establishment of new schools, requiring a council to seek permission from the DfE before considering alternative models of provision and giving powers to the department to order a council to withdraw a notice issued to invite proposals for establishing a new school.

The DfE has projected that while overall pupil numbers in state-funded schools have been in decline, they will increase from this year onwards. Indeed, by 2014, pupil numbers in maintained primary schools will be more than 8 per cent higher than in 2010. Despite the current contraction in demand for secondary school places, the increase in demand for primary school places over the next three to four years is likely to create a sudden boom in the demand for pupil places such that the education system has not had to react to since demand began to decline in 2004.

The primary concern of a council and its community when managing this demand and seeking to establish a new school should be the needs of local parents, and of course of children. Furthermore, councils must be able to balance place provision to ensure that the needs of the entire local area are met. We need to ensure that the Bill does not reduce the ability of local parents, education providers and councils to respond quickly and effectively to new demand and that local choice and diversity of provision are maintained.

Unfortunately, the later provisions in Schedule 11 could restrict the ability of local communities to decide what type of school is established, not only by the creation of burdensome and bureaucratic reporting requirements but ultimately by placing decision-making in the hands of departmental officials in Whitehall rather than locally elected representatives in town halls. Councils understand their residents and local areas well. If local parents do not want schools to be established as academies, there needs to be an option to reflect local parental demand and to establish other types of schools. Councils should not be required to get permission from Whitehall before responding to and implementing the wishes of local residents.

[Lord Sutherland of Houndwood]

My Lords, I hope to speak to briefly on this question in view of my earlier remarks. This is a crucial clause, which has to do with the direction of government policy and a struggle that might develop between national policy and local authorities. The Academies Bill has gone through. I supported that, and I support the direction of travel in this Bill, not least because it clarifies very considerably what the Academies Bill amounted to. There are two or three points of difficulty that I want to mention, to which I hope the Minister might respond.

First, if every school becomes an academy, which is a possibility, then, as we have consistently pointed out, there may be cracks in the system. There has to be some oversight should these cracks appear. This is not regulating schools; it is trying to find a coherent policy that serves the needs of the whole community, should every school become independent of local authority control. As I said, the direction of travel is right, not least because we have had many decades of local authority supervision of schools and we do not have a system that any of us is content with. That is the reality, and it is one good reason why we should support the Bill, another being the excellence of the academy policy of the previous Government and the way in which many schools want to sign up to it. We have to give this a fair wind.

I have read the Explanatory Notes very carefully, and paragraph 180 contains a series of bullet points on which it is possible for local authorities to take a view on founding a further school. The most significant of these is a loophole. It is the last bullet point in paragraph 180, and it reads:

“Local authority proposals for a new community or foundation school”,

are possible,

“where following publication of a section 7 notice no proposals are approved by the local authority, no Academy arrangements are entered into, or no proposals are received”.

There is therefore, as I read this, room for the local authority to take steps to make provision for what otherwise might be absent.

I have two further points. First, the proposals for a series of schools becoming in effect independent over the years lack a proper sense of scrutiny of what might happen over the next five, 10 or 15 years in some of these schools. I shall speak to this point when we come on to exemptions from inspection and I shall not expand on it now. Secondly, 20 years ago a Secretary of State came up with a great new whizz and said to me, “Stewart, I plan to make all schools directly answerable to the Secretary of State. What do you think?”. I gulped and pointed out to him that this might mean that in Parliament he would be answering questions about the state of the lavatories at Walford primary school because there would be no other place to go to raise the questions. I hope any sensible Government would want to avoid that kind of situation.

Education Bill

Baroness Ritchie of Brompton Excerpts

Thursday 30th June 2011 Grand Committee

[Baroness Sharp of Guildford]

My Lords, I should like briefly to say how much I endorse the amendment proposed by the noble Lord, Lord Laming, and the noble Baroness, Lady Whitaker. My noble friend Lady Walmsley mentioned that we have spent some time congratulating the Government on introducing this provision and on making sure that schools were included in it. We are very sorry to see that the coalition is now going back on this particular duty.

I speak with a particular interest, as I am currently chairing a commission on colleges in their community. Further education colleges are mentioned here. One thing is becoming apparent from this; the commission is to develop the role that colleges can and do play within their communities. It is clear that the best of our colleges have enormous breadth of partnerships with all kinds of community organisations, which are currently promoting the well-being and development of those communities. They have in some senses a regeneration function, but they also have a function of promoting the well-being of the local community.

The Explanatory Notes say that these duties are being dropped so that these bodies will be able to decide for themselves how to engage in arrangements to improve well-being. I very much echo the words of the noble Baroness, Lady Howarth, in that we are not worried about those that link up naturally. The ones we are really worried about are those that do not bother to do it. Forming these partnerships and links is so important. Having it in statute here provides that extra push or reinforcement for what we want to see. It will be very sad indeed if we drop this duty.

[Baroness Ritchie of Brompton]

My Lords, I welcome this opportunity to make comments on the amendment proposed by the noble Lord, Lord Laming. I declare an interest as the chair of the Children and Young People Board of the Local Government Association. The Local Government Group very much supports the Government’s attempts to reduce bureaucracy that schools face. Our report, Local Freedom or Central Control, was launched last year. For that report we commissioned research that showed that in the past 10 years more than 1,000 pieces of legislation have been passed affecting schools. That means that there is a new piece of primary or secondary legislation every school day over that period. However, we do not necessarily see as excessive the burden on schools of co-operating with the local authority through children’s trusts. We do not believe that you can necessarily legislate for good partnership working, but many councils have found that the requirement on schools to co-operate with the children’s trusts is a helpful way in which to encourage them to participate.

In many cases, the removal of a statutory duty will not immediately lead schools to refuse to work in partnership with local councils. Good schools will want to continue with good partnerships with councils. However, we worry, when all the messages coming out of the department seem to encourage schools to become academies free from local authority control and become more autonomous, that the removal of this duty will provide the wrong signal about the importance of local partnership working to achieve the very best outcomes for local children, young people and their families.

I believe that safeguarding is a particular issue here. We think it is important that schools should continue to be given a very strong message that they must co-operate in local safeguarding arrangements, including the local safeguarding children boards.

[Lord Elton]

Two subjects have been raised in this debate that tempt me to my feet. The first is children excluded from school when the provider of education is not the local authority and the child does not actually receive education because the provision is not there or is not working or the child has escaped from the system. The child is not merely at risk but is predisposed to suffer, because the child who is likely to get into trouble is the child who is likely to get excluded.

When I was working to try and keep children out of crime, rather more effectively than I am now, it was clear that one way of intervening at an earlier stage than normal was to go round to schools and say, “Tell us confidentially who do you expect next to be on the list, on skid row, and into permanent exclusion? Let us provide an adult mentor”. Usually one found that the child had no male role models, as would be normal. The difficulty was actually finding them. That was effective intervention, but that also bears out my feeling that a lot of children are at risk, without anyone realising it, who need not be.

Education Bill

Baroness Ritchie of Brompton Excerpts

Tuesday 14th June 2011 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Ritchie of Brompton]

My Lords, I must declare an interest, first as chairman of the Local Government Association’s Children and Young People Board and, since the Children Act 2004, as lead member for family and children’s services in Kensington and Chelsea. I have seen first hand how local government can make a positive difference to the lives of people locally. As advocates of diversity in school provision and champions of parental choice, councils and councillors really are at the heart of their neighbourhoods. Councils do not run schools, but they make sure that there are enough places for children who need them and that the admission process operates fairly so that every child gets the chance to go to a good local school. Perhaps more importantly, we oversee the distribution of funding in a cost-effective way. Councils also provide the crucial support for children with special educational needs and are the guardians of children in our care.

As the Secretary of State told the Local Government Association conference last year,

“promoting greater parental choice helps to improve standards for all children”,

and the role of councils in the education system should continue to be one in which we are able to ensure that the local school system is flexible and adaptable to local needs. I agree with the Government’s concern that there is too much bureaucracy within the education system. I have met councillors who have been told, “You don’t have the power to do that”, or, “You can’t stray outside the Whitehall guidelines”. This has the perverse effect of stifling innovative thinking from councillors and officers.

We know that this also occurs in schools. Too many forms, too much red tape and too many rules have sometimes stopped the system from focusing on educating children. The LGA is supportive of moves in the Bill to give teachers greater freedoms and flexibilities. I welcome Part 7, which abolishes the Young People’s Learning Agency—a move that will eliminate an agency which currently acts as an unnecessary middle man in the funding process. This provision will, no doubt, come as a relief to many within the 16 to 19 education and training sector who have felt that yet another burdensome central government agency may have added to the bureaucracy of an already complex funding system.

Councils also support the introduction of a national funding formula for fair and transparent funding for schools pre-16 and the reform of post-16 funding to produce a fairer funding system between different types of providers. The LGA is arguing strongly to retain local flexibility so that councils and schools can work together to adapt to local circumstances—for instance, the needs in rural areas or split-site arrangements. One potential model may be to reconsider the need to introduce an education funding agency to replace the abolished YPLA, as proposed in last year’s White Paper on schools. The current approach to funding pre-16 education through the DSG should be maintained and could easily be extended to cover 16 to 19 funding. This would be cost-effective and would eliminate the associated costs and bureaucracy of a national agency, but such a move would have the benefit of the DSG already in effect being a national formula which distributes money on a formula basis.

I also welcome the focus on the apprenticeships offer, particularly for children in care, but I ask the Government to look at other vulnerable groups of young people such as young carers, who often find it hard to access training and employment. Local government has welcomed such moves elsewhere to hand responsibility from central government agencies to local councils as part of the Government’s localism drive. It is natural then for councils to have some worries about some of the proposals in the Bill which appear to centralise matters where councils currently have discretion to make choices and react to local circumstances. For example, in Part 5, Clause 43 allows the Secretary of State to direct a council to issue a performance standards and safety warning notice to a school. Research commissioned by the LGA shows that councils, head teachers and school improvement partners prefer a collaborative partnership approach to school improvement. The study found no evidence that the increased use of warning notices would greatly assist processes of school improvement. There was some concern that such notices could be counterproductive where a school is in a gradual or fragile process of improvement. Equally, I recognise that where these partnerships are not working, then more control may be needed. While the intention may be that this new ability for central government to overrule a local decision is used only sparingly, I urge the Government, in the spirit of localism, to consider carefully the introduction of this power.

Similarly, Schedule 11 introduces new rules requiring councils that are looking to establish a new school to first seek to establish an academy, and introduces a requirement for a council to seek the Secretary of State’s approval before proceeding with exploring alternative proposals should an academy not be considered appropriate for the needs of local children and parents. Councils’ primary concern when encouraging new provision in their areas should be the needs of parents and children. That will include balancing diversity of provision to expand choice. It is imperative that this new process does not reduce the ability of local parents, education providers and councils to respond quickly and effectively to new demand and that local choice and diversity of provision is maintained. Unfortunately, there is a risk that a potentially burdensome process requiring approval and scrutiny by the DfE could restrict the ability of local communities to decide what type of school is established in their area. Councils support the many excellent academies that already exist in their areas and there is nothing wrong with a presumption that in the future, when a new school is to be established, the option of an academy is actively explored. However, I again urge the Government to apply the spirit of localism to the Bill and consider removing the requirement for councils to go cap in hand to the department for permission to explore alternative models of schools.

The final area I wish to touch on very briefly is the role of local authority school governors, to which my noble friend has already referred. I am pleased that the Minister of State for Schools made it clear that the Government did not intend to diminish the contribution made by local authority governors, and will ensure that governing bodies that reconstitute will be required to have one local authority-appointed governor. I look forward to supporting the Government in amending the Bill in this regard as we move through further scrutiny.

Children: Early Intervention

Baroness Ritchie of Brompton Excerpts

Thursday 17th March 2011 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Ritchie of Brompton]

My Lords, I thank my noble friend Lady Walmsley for bringing this important topic to the House for us to debate again. I know that the coalition Government take early intervention very seriously, and I am sure that they will be listening to our contributions—the Minister is with us. I know that they want to ensure that effective strategies are put in place throughout the country.

Early intervention has been proven to work by numerous anecdotes, individual programmes and—as my noble friend Lady Walmsley said—a lot of research both in Britain and overseas. However, as I said in my previous contributions on this topic, I am concerned that the effect of early intervention can only be seen in the very long term, and often it is quick results and short-termism that attract continued finance. Therefore, we must ensure that long-term funding, support and monitoring are all put in place for all early intervention programmes to ensure their effectiveness. It is difficult to prove the positive impact of early intervention as many of the projects have been funded for too short a time although they are showing excellent results. As the National Children’s Bureau has commented, the real research findings on the outcomes of Sure Start tend to show that results really become evidenced many years down the line. I declare an interest as president of the NCB.

Perhaps I may bring to the House’s attention the latest report from the Centre for Excellence and Outcomes in Children and Young People’s Services, also known as C4EO, which collates much of the work on outcomes for children and families, including work on early intervention. Grasping the Nettle is a joint report with the Association of Directors of Children’s Services and makes the very good point that although targeted approaches tend to be judged more cost-effective than universal approaches, there is little comparative evidence to determine which approach might be the right course of action. Indeed, the report concludes that it is likely to be a combination of both and that a range of interventions would support different levels of need.

However, one outcome is clear. It is far more cost-effective to put in place rigorous early intervention schemes than to have to deal with the cost of problems later on. A long-term scheme in the United States called the Nurse Family Partnership found that $9,000 spent per child had the average benefit of more than $26,000 per child in later life, and also that crime reduction was an important contributor to that benefit. The scheme is replicated in the UK as the Family Nurse Partnership, but a long-term evaluation has not yet been completed.

My second point is that parenting programmes, to which my noble friend Lady Walmsley referred, are an essential part of any early intervention support. International studies and effective local practice in the UK have shown very clearly that good parenting, regardless of background, is crucial to good outcomes for children and young people Effective parenting support leads to improved outcomes for children, parents and families. Parenting is one of the most difficult jobs and yet there is no training or recognition for this vital role in our society.

Again, I believe that we need properly funded long-term projects. It is not fair that some parents get support while a three or five-year project being run before closure possibly due to a lack of funding leaves other parents with no help. When resources are scarce we need to ensure that we have the vision—which I believe that this Government have—to lead the commissioning of good, evidenced-based, multi-agency targeting of parenting and other early intervention support. Evidence by the NCB suggests that multi-agency approaches are the most effective in complex families.

The OECD suggests that expenditure on children should be regarded as if it were an investment portfolio, with a continual process of evaluation and reallocation to ensure that child well-being is actually improved. I welcome the model that C4EO has developed to help assess the cost of effective interventions at a time of reducing resources, as the methodology up to now has been weak. I hope that local authorities will make use of it. All the international evidence suggests that spending more intensively earlier is cost-effective, particularly for children in disadvantaged families, and we need to ensure that we roll out successful early intervention support throughout the United Kingdom.

Children: Policy

Baroness Ritchie of Brompton Excerpts

Monday 14th February 2011 Lords Chamber

[Lord Hill of Oareford]

I am aware of the recommendations in Graham Allen’s report and the approach that he advocates of concentrating on the 19, as he would judge it, most approved standards. However, his recommendation is based on an American methodology which is different from the one commonly used in this country, and that is one issue that the Government will need to reflect on in framing their response to the Allen review.

[Baroness Ritchie of Brompton]

My Lords, does my noble friend agree that it is a travesty that only 1.4 per cent of health service spending goes on primary prevention? Can he impress on his noble friend the Minister the importance of assessing the effectiveness of early intervention, even if it takes a little while to understand it?

[Lord Hill of Oareford]

I agree with my noble friend. So far as concerns the Department of Health, the number of health visitors is to be increased by 4,200 and there will be a doubling in the size of family nurse partnerships. However, I shall certainly relay the thrust of my noble friend’s remarks.

Education: Special Educational Needs

Baroness Ritchie of Brompton Excerpts

Thursday 21st October 2010 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Ritchie of Brompton]

My Lords, I congratulate the noble Baroness, Lady Warnock, on initiating this very timely debate, coming as it does a week after the deadline for submissions of evidence to the Government’s SEN Green Paper. I chair the Local Government Group’s children and young people’s board; my remarks therefore reflect the views of local councils, for whom the needs of the child and the young person are of paramount importance.

I shall concentrate briefly on two important issues: the need for a single system for assessing and supporting children and young people with special educational need; and the important role that schools play in meeting the needs of those with less complex special educational needs. Everyone shares the concern that the current SEN arrangements are too complex and bureaucratic. The Ofsted review said that parents felt that they had to,

“fight for the rights of their children”.

This cannot be right when parents already have to deal with a number of stressful situations. Equally, when there are delays and bureaucracy the people who suffer the most are the young people themselves.

A key part of the problem is that, in reality, there are two different assessment and funding arrangements for children with special educational needs: the SEN system, which applies to children up to the age of 19 who remain in school or in a special school, and then another system for those with a learning difficulty or disability who study outside school settings—for example, at a further education college. The reason for having these two systems goes back to a series of legislative changes that took responsibility for funding further education away from councils and gave it to a series of national quangos: first, the Further Education Council, then the learning and skills councils and now the Young People’s Learning Agency.

The responsibility for commissioning education for young people with learning disabilities aged 16 to 25 has recently been passed back to councils, however, although for now the funding remains with the YPLA. This seems to be an unhelpful and overly complex split. Instead, we need to think of the children and young people whom we want to help. We need a single system for assessing and supporting those with special educational needs up to the age of 25. This would allow us to bring together the contributions of all the agencies involved in a seamless way that would benefit both parents and children. That would be in line with the Ofsted recommendation that future changes should simplify arrangements and make them more consistent across different age groups and levels of need.

Councils can take the lead in this area. They already have a wealth of experience and expertise in leading on SEN assessment and support. Equally, as children grow up, it is councils that take on the responsibility for those who continue to need support as adults. They have also developed local partnerships with other agencies involved in SEN support, such as schools and the health service and with the voluntary sector. I argue that national quangos such as the YPLA, with no local connections and little involvement in local partnerships, are not best placed to have a role in the assessment, support or funding of young people with a learning disability.

This is not about extending the role of local councils, but rather about recognising their democratic mandate and local accountability which can make this process quicker, fairer, less bureaucratic and, above all, improve choice for parents and their children. Recently local authorities have been making decisions about 16 to 25 year-olds with special educational needs. The early evidence is that they are working successfully with providers, increasing the range of local provision, which many young people prefer, and often at a lower cost.

I turn to the important role which schools play in supporting children and young people with less complex SEN. This is particularly topical in the light of the coalition Government’s intention to give schools more freedom and autonomy. Schools already receive funding to support pupils with less complex special needs but, although the majority of school funding—around 90 per cent—is passported directly to schools on the basis of pupil numbers, the funding for SEN services comes from the 10 per cent that is allocated locally, following discussion in their schools forum. This is what is commonly but mistakenly called the “10 per cent centrally retained by councils”. The fact is that this money is spent on schools, or on services provided to schools, following local discussion about whether it can be more cost-effectively spent on services procured by the council. Chief among the services bought in this way is SEN support, with councils buying in specialist services such as educational psychologists or speech therapists on behalf of schools, which then really meet the needs of the individual children.

Schools that are keen to become academies or free schools and which take control of the 10 per cent of the so-called “centrally retained money” need to recognise that the funding is there to support, among other things, children with special needs. If they have this funding, they will have responsibility for making sure that the provision needed is available. Schools have a vital role in supporting children with lower-end special educational needs, and councils should provide the extra support to children with formal statements and assessments. In a system where we have more autonomous schools, we will need to find a way to make sure that they can continue to provide this support and that the children and young people who need it have fair and, above all, speedy access to help and support.