Special Educational Needs and Disabilities Review

Stephen McPartland Excerpts

Tuesday 29th March 2022 Commons Chamber

[Nadhim Zahawi]

I am grateful for the hon. Gentleman’s thoughtful question, which the Chair of the Education Committee also raised. Essentially, the Green Paper will make sure that we hold local authorities to account through the new funding agreements, through the local inclusion dashboard, which will provide transparency so that people can see how areas are performing locally, and through the new area inspection. As well as making sure that we do as the Minister for Children and Families did with the written statement of action in Birmingham, we want to learn from the best. Manchester is doing well; Dixons City Academy in Bradford is an excellent example of how this works well; Passmores Academy, a mainstream academy in Harlow, is doing incredible work. We learn from the best and scale it across the system.

[Stephen McPartland (Stevenage) (Con)]

I congratulate my right hon. Friend on his commitment to ensure that every child with SEND has the best opportunities and chances in education. Does he agree that many of those children’s needs are met well in mainstream schools by SENCOs and family support workers, but we have to go further and faster to ensure that every teacher has the opportunity, the skills, the support and everything they need to be brilliant teachers of all children with special educational needs?

[Nadhim Zahawi]

I could not have put it better myself—my hon. Friend is absolutely right. Our proposals include the national professional qualification, up to 5,000 SENCOs in early years, and getting early identification in place. The schools White Paper and the parent pledge will also drive the thirst for knowledge to ensure that every teacher is confident in identifying the needs of their students.

Oral Answers to Questions

Stephen McPartland Excerpts

Monday 12th October 2020 Commons Chamber

[Nick Gibb]

The hon. Lady is right that schools have been able to claim for exceptional covid-related costs for that period of March to July. Our priority now, as schools reopen to all pupils, is to target the available extra funding on catch-up, supporting schools to help all pupils to catch-up lost teaching time when schools were closed to most pupils. The £1 billion catch-up funding includes £650 million distributed on a per pupil basis to all schools, which means that a typical 1,000-pupil secondary school will receive £80,000 in extra funding this year. That is on top of the three-year funding settlement that I mentioned earlier—the biggest funding boost for schools in a decade.

[Stephen McPartland (Stevenage) (Con)]

What recent assessment he has made of the effectiveness of funding arrangements for SEND education.

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Education (Vicky Ford)]

We are putting an extra £730 million into funding those with complex special educational needs and disabilities next year, which represents a 10% increase year-on-year in the high needs block, and that comes on top of the £780 million increase for this year, which means that the block will have grown by £1.5 billion, which is an increase of nearly a quarter. In Hertfordshire, funding for the high needs block will grow by 24% over that two-year period.

[Stephen McPartland]

I welcome the increased Government funding in Hertfordshire, but the county council does not pass it through to families on the frontline. It is cutting funding to our Delivering Special Provision Locally groups. Our child and mental health services are overwhelmed. It is focusing on process, instead of our children with SEND. Will the Minister undertake a review of the real accessibility of SEND services in Hertfordshire and help me hold the council to account, so that we can fix SEND in Hertfordshire?

[Vicky Ford]

I thank my hon. Friend for his concern for the young people of Hertfordshire and their families. The Government are undertaking a major review of the special educational needs and disabilities system. It is a major priority for the Government and we are considering improvements to make sure that the SEND system is consistent, high quality and integrated across education, health and care and, importantly, that it works with parents, carers and families to make sure that they and their children are at the heart of the system.