Education: Special Educational Needs

Lord Hill of Oareford Excerpts

Thursday 21st October 2010 Lords Chamber

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

My Lords, I knew that this would be an extremely good debate and the House has not disappointed. Like many other noble Lords, I congratulate the noble Baroness, Lady Warnock, on securing this debate and for giving us the chance to discuss this important issue. Given her long experience and her pivotal role in the first SEN legislation, nearly 30 years ago, her words carry particular weight and the whole House will have listened, as I did, to what she had to say with special care. On one of her first points, wanting reassurance on whether the Government will take the Ofsted review into account in connection with the Green Paper, I absolutely give her that reassurance. I spoke to my honourable friend the Minister of State for Children and Families, Sarah Teather, about the noble Baroness’s debate, and it is the case that the points that all noble Lords have raised today, which are extremely timely, will feed in to that process. I hope that that provides some reassurance.

Like others, I congratulate the noble Lord, Lord Stevenson of Balmacara, on his excellent maiden speech. I look forward to the contributions that he will make in this area and on education more generally. I know that he is a governor of a special school. To me, governors are often the unsung heroes and heroines of our school system, and I would appreciate it if he would spare the time to talk about his experience as a governor at that school; I would like to hear more.

I also see that he edited a number of speeches by the former Prime Minister, Mr Gordon Brown. As someone who was involved myself in speechwriting for another former Prime Minister, this tells me a number of things about the noble Lord: that he is patient, that he has great stamina and that he must be a man of great tact. These are all qualities which will stand him in very good stead in the deliberations of this House, and I know that we all welcome him to our debates.

I learnt early on how much Members of this House take children with special educational needs and disabilities to their hearts; the noble Lord, Lord Williamson of Horton, kindly reminded me of the passage of the Academies Act. We have seen that again today in the quality of the debate and the thoughtful way in which the argument has been made by noble Lords in all parts of the House.

I thought that I would start with a couple of statistics to set the issue in contrast, and these have already been alluded to. First, it is clearly still the case that too many young people are not achieving what they are capable of; there is broad agreement on that. Ofsted found that achievement was “good or outstanding” in 41 per cent of the education providers that it visited, which means that 59 per cent were merely satisfactory or below. In fact, it rated 14 per cent as inadequate.

We know from our own data that children with SEN account for 63 per cent of fixed-period exclusions and over 70 per cent of all permanent exclusions. Like other noble Lords who have spoken today, the Government are keen to try to break the link between a child’s background and circumstances and their achievement.

Listening to the debate, it also struck me that there was a large degree of agreement and unanimity around the Chamber, and there were a number of principles on which we would all agree: we are keen to raise the quality of education for all our children; we want parents to have as much choice as possible and as much involvement as possible in decisions that affect their child; we want to give professionals—teachers and social workers—as much freedom as possible to do the best job they can; and, perhaps above all in the harder economic times to which the noble Baroness, Lady Morgan of Drefelin, referred, we will do all we can to think about and look after the interests of the most disadvantaged children in the country.

It may be better, in terms of the debate about SEN, if I pick up on some of the noble Baroness’s specific points outside this Chamber, but I know that she has concerns overall about the budget that has been secured for the Department for Education. There will be difficult decisions. On specific funding, my honourable friend the Minister for Children and Families will be setting out in fairly short order the next level of spending commitments, how they work through and what funding will be available for them. Overall, though, we take some comfort at the department, when we have to think about these allocations, that the settlement that the department got means that we will be able to deal as well as we can with the pressures that we face. I hope that I will be able to convince the noble Baroness that some of her concerns about the pupil premium and the other issues that she raised are unnecessary.

On rereading the Ofsted report again last night, five main points struck me, reflecting many of the observations that have been made this afternoon. First, there are clearly issues around identification of need, a point made by the noble Baroness, Lady Warnock, at the outset; I will come back to that. Secondly, there is clearly a problem with consistency of identification. The report refers to the fact that different children in both the same and different parts of the country are getting very different treatment out of the system. That does not seem acceptable in principle.

Thirdly, legislation in these areas has become very complex. As my noble friend Lord Addington was honest enough to admit, he and others have, perhaps, added to that complexity. That complexity is clearly a barrier to comprehension. The noble Baroness, Lady Warnock, referred to the use of language that obscures meaning and makes the whole process more difficult. Fourthly, a point made eloquently by the noble Baroness, Lady Grey-Thompson, and the noble Lord, Lord Condon, was that parents feel that the system is so adversarial that they must “fight for their rights”, the phrase used in the Ofsted report.

Fifthly—a point which has not come up this afternoon thus far—the Ofsted report seemed clearly to say that no one model of provision seems to work better than any other, but rigorous monitoring and early intervention are key. So is early assessment, a point made by noble friend Lady Walmsley and the noble Baroness, Lady Howe. I take that to heart. The final point brought to my attention in the course of the debate, by my noble friend Lady Linklater, is the need for a shift from process to outcomes.

Those were, for me, the main conclusions of the report, and I feel they have been borne out by the nature of the debate we have had this afternoon. Overall, therefore, the report tells us that we need to have a thorough look at the system of SEN provision. Although our children’s services professionals are generally working hard, and there is evidence of excellent practice, the system as whole does not seem to be accessible. It is difficult to navigate and does not seem to be delivering equal opportunities.

These are all important points on which we need to reflect, and which I know from my conversation this morning are very much in the mind of my honourable friend Sarah Teather, the Minister for Children and Families. As noble Lords will know, the Government intend to publish a Green Paper on SEN and disability. To update noble Lords on the timing, the aim is to get that published by the end of this year. That will provide the opportunity to take those points into account.

Identification is one of the core issues, and one of the issues about which there was most coverage in the media. I accept the point that there was a fair amount of misreporting about some of the detail in the report. The report seemed to say that, although identification of children with very severe or complex needs is generally consistent and well managed, there is a problem. There are disparities in the identification of less severe needs at both local and national level. That seems to highlight a need to consider the definition, or how that definition is applied in schools. With one in five children now identified as having a special educational need, we must consider how broadly we apply that definition.

The figures tell a clear story. The first part of this point was made by the noble Baroness, Lady Warnock. For pupils with statements, the figures have been consistent over time; the most recent figures are 2.9 per cent in 2006, 2.8 per cent in 2007, 2.8 per cent in 2008, 2.7 per cent in 2009 and 2.7 in 2010, so there is a great deal of consistency. Over the same period, however, when overall pupil rolls were falling, the number of children on school action rose from 843,000 to nearly 916,000, and on school action plus by nearly 100,000.

I also looked at some international comparisons to see whether they told us anything. Those are not straightforward but it seems to be the case, yet again, that the percentage of children with statements is broadly comparable with other countries. However, there seems to be less consistency and comparability, from looking at a range of other countries, when it comes to children with SEN who are not statemented. I know there has been speculation as to why this might be. There has been some speculation about value added. I think the noble Baroness, Lady Warnock, talked about laziness and greed. I am not sure it is clear to us that that is the reason; we should not rush to judgment. However, we clearly have to look at what is going on as part of the Green Paper process. Ofsted has done a helpful job in highlighting these disparities and getting us to look at these questions.

Of the education providers it visited, Ofsted found that around half are principally using low attainment and slow progress as indicators of a special educational need. It saw this as self-perpetuating, as continued lack of progress was put down to special educational need. It is right and important to emphasise that teachers work extremely hard to develop their pupils and support those children with additional needs as they do so. However, if a child’s needs were more clearly defined, a better assessment could be made of a child’s capability and educational potential. I will reflect on the points made by my noble friend Lady Walmsley and others about the importance of teacher training and making sure that special educational needs training is considered part of that.

I will touch briefly on inclusion, which was initially raised by my noble friend Lady Linklater. I will also respond to some powerful points made by the noble Lord, Lord Low, on what he described as the enlightened consensus. My noble friend Lord Addington also raised points around this. I think we are broadly in agreement. I do not think the noble Lord, Lord Low, is saying that he is afraid that the Government have an agenda to force children with SEN into special schools. We absolutely do not want to do that; nor do we want to force them into mainstream schools or, indeed, any particular type of provision. Our aim, which is shared across this House on both sides, is to create real choice for parents so far as we can, so that they are able to make those decisions for their children, as is their natural right.

We are committed in the coalition agreement to ending the unnecessary closure of special schools, which serve so many children and their parents well. That does not imply that we believe all children should be shoehorned into special schools. I very much agree with the noble Lord, Lord Low, and others that many children with special educational needs certainly benefit from mainstream education. The Ofsted report itself stated that enabling children to be as independent as possible often supported good achievement. However, we think that judgment should be made by parents, with the support and advice of children’s services professionals. There was an interesting report by the National Autistic Society in 2006, which found that, given a theoretical choice, parents were fairly evenly split between those who wanted mainstream schools, those who wanted special schools and those who wanted resource bases in mainstream schools as the best option for their child. What we must try to do is ensure that we can make the choice not theoretical but real. Overall, our aim is to focus on raising standards in all schools so that, whatever option parents choose, they can be assured that their child is receiving the highest quality of education.

I will say a little about academies and exclusions, which was raised by my noble friend Lord Clement-Jones. Academies get a slightly bad press on this. The overall level of exclusions from academies has fallen and has done so for every year. In 2002-03 the percentage was 0.96; in 2008-09 it fell to 0.31 per cent. It is also the case that as many academies have exclusion rates below the national average as have exclusion rates above the national average. I was very conscious of the concerns that were raised about SEN during the passage of the Academies Bill and will continue to keep a close eye on that as the Minister responsible for academies. However, I have not been able to discern any pattern at all. Overall, there is a higher proportion of pupils with special needs without statements in academies than there is in maintained secondary schools.

A specific point was raised about the separation of assessment and funding—I think originally by the noble Baroness, Lady Warnock. The separation of assessment and funding is an option that the Government ought to consider and it is one that I know my honourable friend Sarah Teather will consider as part of the Green Paper discussions. We had an interesting debate about language and definition. I certainly take the point made by a number of noble Lords about complexity of language, especially the potential overlap of definitions, about which the noble Baroness was particularly concerned. We have to try to produce a simpler and more comprehensible SEN and disability system. We will certainly consider whether there need to be any changes to statutory definitions as they apply to children.

I wish to say a few words on the SEN Green Paper. Last month, the Minister of State outlined the plans for a Green Paper. It will cover a whole range of issues from school choice to early identification and assessment, funding and support for families. It is crucial that parents and children feel confident in the services that they are receiving from all children’s services professionals, that where assessments and onward referrals are needed they happen quickly, clearly and effectively, and that services are fair and always in the child’s best interests.

We are therefore considering a range of options to look at how to give parents real choice in the educational settings which can meet their child’s needs, make the system more transparent, cost-effective and high quality, prevent the unnecessary closure of special schools, improve diagnosis and assessment to identify children with additional needs earlier—that echoes the point made by my noble friend Lord Clement-Jones on the importance of early assessment of autism—and to support young people with SEN and disabilities post-16, beyond their compulsory schooling. That picks up on a point made by my noble friend Lady Ritchie. We have already run an initial consultation process. We had 1,600 responses and we will be running a further consultation on the Green Paper itself.

This has been an excellent debate, and one in which there has been much consensus, both on our ambitions for young people with special educational needs and on our appreciation of the problems caused by the current system. I have certainly listened carefully to the concerns raised and I will pass them on to my honourable friend the Minister of State for Children and Families. I spoke to her this morning. She is very keen to hear from Members of this House. If it is convenient for noble Lords, I will suggest that we organise a meeting with my honourable friend to discuss these issues and take the matter further.