Special Educational Needs and Disability Funding

Alex Chalk Excerpts

Wednesday 29th January 2020 Westminster Hall

[Alex Chalk (Cheltenham) (Con)]

I congratulate the hon. Member for Twickenham (Munira Wilson) on her powerful and forceful contribution on such an important issue. She has the thanks of the House for raising this issue.

I start by setting out the position in Cheltenham, where we are particularly well served, with Battledown Centre, which assesses children between the ages of two and six; Belmont School, which is for children with moderate learning difficulties; Bettridge School for children with severe learning difficulties; and the Ridge Academy for children with emotional and behavioural problems.

As the hon. Member for Twickenham said, it is hard to overstate the extent to which demand has rocketed; it is not just demand in terms of the numbers, but in terms of complexity as well. To put a little flesh on those bones, the 2019 National Audit Office report—recent data—indicated that the number of pupils attending special schools had risen between January 2014 and January 2018 by 20.2%. Furthermore, in terms of complexity, the proportion of pupils with the greatest needs had risen between 2014 and 2019 from 2.8% to 3.1%. That might not sound like a great deal, but given the extent to which they require significant resources, it is a telling point. I have picked up that point when speaking to teachers in my constituency. One told me that he had worked in a special school for something like 25 years. When he started in the 1990s, a normal pupil-teacher ratio was in the order of 16:1, but the idea of a 16:1 ratio now in a school with moderate learning difficulties is completely fanciful, because the level of complexity is much more significant.

In practice, what that means is that those schools that are supposed to be dealing with children with moderate learning difficulties are, in fact, dealing with children with severe learning difficulties, and those schools that are meant to be dealing with children with severe learning difficulties very often find it difficult to cope. What then happens? Those children end up in independent provision. Quite apart from whether that is the best place for them to be, it is incredibly expensive and ends up taking resources away from the pot.

We spend a lot of time praising public servants in this place—that is absolutely as it should be—but we should have a special regard and respect for those people who work in our special schools. They are dealing with an extraordinary surge in complexity with an extraordinary sense of professionalism, devotion and care. They have my sincere gratitude, and I dare say that of everyone here.

We have got to have a better understanding of why this surge is happening. The Government announced a review in September 2019, and that work has to include action on the specific health conditions that are driving the demand. As a society, we have to face up to an issue, which is positive, but which is sometimes uncomfortable for us to grapple with. The reality is that there are a lot of children surviving in childbirth who might never have survived before. Thank goodness that is happening, but it does mean that we as a society have to recognise that there may be knock-on consequences, which we have to resource properly.

[Layla Moran]

I am pleased that the hon. Member is raising the work of the NAO. I helped to lead that inquiry for the Public Accounts Committee, and it is good work. We need to be very careful. Although there is potentially a correlation, it is anecdotal that there is a relationship between the two. It is not necessarily borne out in the data. I would be wary of making that link without the data.

[Alex Chalk]

The hon. Lady is absolutely right to tread carefully. The central point is that we need the data. It is critical that we make these important public policy decisions on the basis of the strongest evidence. We have to go where the evidence takes us, even if it is not always comfortable to do so.

I pay tribute to the Government for the additional funding. Of course, we all want more, but it is important to recognise how significant that additional sum has been. It is something in the order of £700 million. Taken in isolation, such figures are meaningless. We have to look at the context of the overall high-needs pot of around £6 billion. The Government investment is a significant sum of money set against that. In Gloucestershire, that means that the budget has gone from about £60 million up to £66 million. I take on board the points made by the hon. Member for Twickenham about ongoing needs and the fact that some local authorities have found themselves overspending and viring money from the mainstream block to fund the shortfall, but we should not lose sight of the fact that is none the less a significant sum of money.

Of course, although it is a critical factor, it is not all about money. I pay tribute to the headteachers in Cheltenham, and Gloucestershire more widely, who have addressed the point made by the hon. Member for Barnsley East (Stephanie Peacock) about off-rolling. We did have a big problem with off-rolling in Gloucestershire, but the headteachers have worked closely together and they have reduced the number of exclusions by 19% in 2018 and 42% since September 2019. That is a fantastic piece of work because, at the risk of stating the obvious, if they do not do that schools decline to manage children with SEND in mainstream education, who might then go to schools with moderate learning difficulties; those schools cannot cope, and they then shunt people on to schools with severe learning difficulties, and as I indicated earlier, they often end up in independent provision. We have to break the cycle and break that domino effect. Headteachers working together are doing so, and I commend them on that.

I have a number of asks of the Government. Will the Government look again at the expectation that mainstream schools such as, for example, Pittville School or Balcarras School in my constituency should pay for the cost of SEN support up to £6,000? That places a financial burden on schools. Although they are living up to their obligations, we should recognise the strain that that places on them. Secondly, I have indicated that we need to progress work on identifying causes. Thirdly, we need to look again at the code of practice and, in particular, the threshold for education, health and care plans. We simply cannot duck that. Finally, is now the time that we ought to look at whether clinical commissioning groups should bear some of the burden, particularly where there is increasing medical intervention? As a society, we have to grapple with those issues. I am grateful to the hon. Member for Twickenham for raising the debate and I pay tribute to the teachers who deliver so much in Gloucestershire.