Children and Families Bill

Debate between Lord Touhig and Baroness Wilkins

Wednesday 6th November 2013 Grand Committee

[Baroness Wilkins (Lab)]

My Lords, I add my strong support to Amendment 181. My noble friend Lady Hughes has just refereed to Jane Raca. Anyone who has read her book, Standing Up for James, will know that there is an urgent need to improve the current system of support for families with disabled children. However, the Government’s proposals for appeals risk creating an even more complex system than already exists, with different appeals or challenges having to be made simultaneously, as we have heard, about different parts of the EHC plan to different bodies.

In her book, Jane Raca recounts the situation of her local vicar’s family. The Tomlinsons have six children, including Edmund, who is 14 and severely autistic. Ed does not speak and has no sense of danger or of what is socially appropriate, He is very often awake at night, meaning that Matthew and Joanna, his parents, have very little sleep. Although Ed’s statement provides for him to attend a weekly boarding school for autistic children, he is at home every weekend and all school holidays. Despite that, his parents receive just 27 nights’ respite a year, which they try to eke out during the school holidays. They got that only when they broke down completely in front of their GP.

That is far too little support but, as Joanna Tomlinson says, she just did not have the strength to fight for what the family needed and for Ed’s needs to be looked at holistically. The Bill holds out hope for that. Joanna knew that her local authority would not have agreed to fund both the education and the social care provision, and that she would have had to fight to appeal on both fronts. The Bill will perpetuate that unless we accept these amendments. If we do not, parents will still have to face three different processes if they wish to challenge the content of EHC plans. I urge the Minister to accept this amendment.

[Lord Touhig (Lab)]

My Lords, I will just add a few words. This multilayered system of appeal is absolutely insane and crying out to be altered. In Wales, we have a word, “dwp”, which means stupid or daft in the head. If a Nobel prize were awarded for daft bits of red tape, this would get it. Surely the Government must see the common sense and logic of reducing this down to one system of appeal and stopping all the battles that people who have children with special educational needs or disabilities, or children who are autistic, must have to appeal a decision that they think is not just, right or in the interests of their child.

Children and Families Bill

Debate between Lord Touhig and Baroness Wilkins

Monday 28th October 2013 Grand Committee

[Lord Touhig (Lab)]

My Lords, I add my support to the noble Lord, Lord Low, on Amendment 98A, to which I have added my name. I shall also speak to Amendment 99, in my name and the names of my noble friend Lady Hughes and my noble friend Lady Jones.

The noble Lord, Lord Low, has outlined the objectives of Amendment 98A, which requires local authorities, where services that they provide have been found insufficient, to involve parents and young people in producing an action plan, to revise the education and care provision in the local offer and to review and report on progress against the action plan.

I look across the Room. I believe that the Minister has spent most of his life working in business. I am sure, therefore, that he would see the merits of this amendment; if he ran a business that was in danger of losing a major customer, he would want to find out why and then to put in place an action plan to deliver what the customer wanted, thereby keeping the business. Amendment 98A does just that. The provider of the service is required to engage with the user to ensure that what is provided is what is needed. That seems sensible to me.

I turn to Amendment 99. Clause 27 requires local authorities to keep education and care provision under review. While that is welcome, in the view of the Opposition it is insufficient. Amendment 99 would require local authorities to assess whether there was sufficient funding in place to be able to secure these services for all the children and young people who needed them. If they found that they lacked the wherewithal, they should consider jointly commissioning services with neighbouring local authorities where appropriate.

These are difficult economic times and there has been huge pressure on local authority spending and budgets. Whether or not services are secured and available should not depend on whether a particular local council can afford the level of provision needed to meet the needs of children and young people in its area. Therefore, collaboration strongly commends itself.

I am sure that I am not alone in believing that accountability is the key to these reforms. Parents, children and young people should be able to rely on the services provided by the local authority and render it accountable when that provision is not met. That seems fair and proper, and our amendment requires local authorities to consider working together and sharing services with neighbouring authorities. I believe that that already takes place in a number of London boroughs. I know that in my part of the country, Wales, a lot of collaboration is now taking place between local authorities that are sharing the ability to provide services across a number of boroughs.

Importantly, Amendment 99 would not constrain local authorities to work with others but would merely require them to consider doing so in the interests of improving services for children and young people. The amendment was dismissed in the other place, where the Minister said that the decision for spending on children and young people with special educational needs must remain one for the local authority. We would certainly agree with that, but nevertheless Amendment 99 highlights a problem and seeks to find a solution. If the Government recognise that there is a problem but do not want to accept this amendment as a solution, will the Minister explain how they will ensure that local authorities deliver the services that young people and children need and that they are accountable for providing those services? In other words, if the Government do not like our solution, what is their solution to a problem that we all recognise exists?

[Baroness Wilkins (Lab)]

My Lords, I support Amendment 98A, moved by the noble Lord, Lord Low, and I echo his comments that accountability must be at the heart of SEN reforms in the Bill. I will also speak to Amendment 99, which is a better version of my Amendment 98, which I withdrew.

Times are tough for all families, but for families with disabled children the challenges are even more acute. The current SEN system has led to parents with disabled children all too often feeling powerless, overwhelmed by the seemingly endless bureaucratic hurdles that they need to jump over to access the support their children need. Parents are exhausted, demoralised and unable to understand why it is such a battle for their children’s needs even to be recognised, let alone given adequate support.

Recent evidence shows that one in eight families in England who have a child with SEN are being pushed to breaking point by a lack of support. Scope’s Keep Us Close report found that 62% of these families said that the services they need are not available in their local area and that that has a serious impact on their family life. It is vital that robust accountability measures are in place around the local offer. This would give parents the confidence that their needs would be listened to and that local support would be in place to enable their children to be a part of their community and part of society, and to have the same opportunities as their non-disabled peers.

Amendment 98A would ensure that the local offer was not merely a “Yellow Pages” of SEN support, as many fear it will be, but was rather a living document, responsive to the needs of families and with a clear intention to improve local services. The current requirement in the Bill for local authorities to publish comments from parents on the local offer, although an important first step, does not go far enough and will not fulfil the Government’s ambition to, in the words of the Children’s Minister, put the child and their family in the driving seat. The amendment would require that local authorities actively involved parents and young people,

“in producing an action plan to revise the education and care provision”,

outlined in the local offer,

“review and report on progress against its action plan”,

and then,

“revise the local offer accordingly”.

That would give Clause 27 some much needed teeth. It should confine the battles, fights and struggles faced by parents to the SEN history books.

Care Bill [HL]

Debate between Lord Touhig and Baroness Wilkins

Tuesday 16th July 2013 Lords Chamber

[Lord Touhig]

My Lords, I support Amendments 88M and 92ZZM in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Low of Dalston, and myself. Assessments must be carried out by assessors with the necessary training and expertise to understand the needs they are assessing. This point has been made time and again in this Chamber. The noble Lord, Lord Low, also referred to the Autism Act. The Department of Health has provided clear direction that autism training is essential for community assessors to ensure that the needs of adults with autism are fairly assessed. Here I declare an interest as a vice-president of the National Autistic Society. The noble Lord, Lord Low, also told us of the too few local authorities that have awareness training in place— 70 out of 152 local authorities have still not got a proper awareness training in place as part of their equality and diversity training.

Crucially, a National Autistic Society survey found that one in three social workers did not have a good understanding of autism. This is, in part, because adults with high-functioning autism or Asperger’s syndrome can have less obvious, hidden needs that can be hard to pick up in any assessment. That is why the assessor must have the necessary training and expertise. Failure to assess needs can mean that autistic people and others with disabilities are denied the support they need to live independently. As we all know, this makes it much more likely that in later life they will have a significantly greater need for support.

We are simply asking in these amendments to ensure that the needs of people with autism and other conditions are expertly and properly assessed. In that way, one can ensure that people will have a good quality of life—the sort that we in this Chamber take for granted. We are not asking for much and I hope that the Minister will agree with that.

[Baroness Wilkins]

My Lords, I strongly support this group of amendments. The consolidation of the care and support legislation into one Bill is very welcome but not if it lessens existing essential provision. As both noble Lords have clearly described, the initial assessment of someone’s needs is critical and must be carried out by someone who is appropriately qualified and understands the impact of the impairment and the types of support that are needed. As we have heard, the Bill does not provide the same requirement as the current statutory guidance. I therefore hope that the noble Earl will recognise the critical importance of specialist assessment for people in these groups and allay the concerns of organisations such as Sense and the RNIB.

Welfare Reform Bill

Debate between Lord Touhig and Baroness Wilkins

Wednesday 16th November 2011 Grand Committee

[Baroness Wilkins]

My Lords, at the risk of replaying the record, this is an important amendment because it would go a long way to protect the Government from facing the same sort of vilification that they have received from their introduction of the work capacity assessment for employment and support allowance. Much more importantly, it would protect disabled people from facing the anxiety, illness and ill health they have experienced while undergoing the headlong rush to reassess the 1.5 million claimants for incapacity benefit. That reassessment has gone ahead despite the fact that the Government know that the assessment criteria are seriously flawed.

As the Minister of State at the DWP, Mr Chris Grayling, said in the other place on 24 October:

“We have received suggested descriptors for mental, cognitive and intellectual function from Professor Harrington’s working group. Given that they represent a substantial departure from how the current assessment works, we are considering what impact they will have and will come forward with proposals soon”.

That is fine. He went on:

“The challenge facing us is that the recommendations will involve a complete change of the work capability assessment, not simply for mental health issues, but for physical issues, and is therefore a multi-year project”.—[Official Report, Commons, 24/10/11; col. 8]

Let us not make the same mistake again. Or rather, please let the Government not make the same mistake again.

I was going to quote from the lady I mentioned in an earlier debate, a GP who attended a recruitment evening for Atos assessments, and who wrote in the BMJ this year. The figures that she was quoted about what a doctor could earn from the assessment process were, I found, quite shocking.

Sessional doctors work a minimum four sessions a week, and are paid per item: £51.37 for non-domiciliary disability living allowance examinations, for example. The application forms for sessional doctors state :

“10 DLA domiciliary visits cases per week would earn £40, 211.60 per annum”.

I ask the Minister—and I apologise if he has already given this answer to the noble Lord, Lord McKenzie—what is the Government’s estimate of the cost of re-examining the thousands of people whose conditions will not change, or will only worsen? And can he remind us how often he is expecting them to be reassessed ?

[Lord Touhig]

My Lords, like many noble Lords I am a great fan of pre-legislative scrutiny, because I think it improves the quality of the legislation we pass. I also have great faith in this Committee system, because we go through a Bill line by line in order to improve it, amend it, and make good law as a result. I certainly support this amendment, because a trial period does make sense.

I look across at my good colleague the noble Baroness, Lady Browning. She and I sat on the Public Accounts Committee in the other place. Time and again we considered reports from the National Audit Office which showed that some great government scheme, some great initiative, had gone billions of pounds over budget, or gone over time. Inevitably we found that these things had not been trialled beforehand, to see if key elements of the proposals would work effectively.

Some unfortunate Permanent Secretary would be brought before the Public Accounts Committee, and like modern-day Draculas, we drew a lot of blood in our interrogations. Inevitably, this Permanent Secretary was not responsible for what the department had got wrong, anyway; it was the previous incumbent, but that is by the by. We were seeking to learn lessons, but inevitably it was like closing the door after the horse had bolted. If only more care had been taken, or things had been trialled and piloted beforehand, then things would not have gone wrong in the way that they did.

If the Government take this amendment on board, it has the potential to save millions of pounds. If the Bill does not take account of this, then somewhere down the track the NAO will come in, in two or three years, and find that there has been some great failure, or some great cost. The Public Accounts Committee will have to investigate, and the Department for Work and Pensions will be held up again as having failed to pilot or introduce a scheme in a good or effective way, as it promised it would. The amendment makes a lot of sense, and I hope the Minister will see that.