Children with Special Educational Needs

Alun Cairns Excerpts

Wednesday 30th March 2011 Westminster Hall

[Alun Cairns (Vale of Glamorgan) (Con)]

It is a privilege to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Brady. I am delighted to have secured this debate on provision for children with special educational needs. The Table Office has advised me that at the outset I should declare an interest: my wife is a lawyer who specialises in educational matters, particularly in representing children with special educational needs. It was her frustration and my outrage, on hearing reports from parents, that sparked my personal interest in this subject, many years ago. The Government’s Green Paper on special educational needs prompted my request to the Speaker for this debate. I hope that it will be the first of many held in the House before the publication of the White Paper.

I welcome the approach taken by the Minister, and was fortunate to receive a briefing on her intentions a couple of weeks ago. She and her colleagues have a genuine passion to make a difference on this issue, and acknowledge the waste, delay, frustration and anger that is often felt about the current system. The Green Paper underlines the Government’s wish to develop a less adversarial approach, offer a greater choice to parents, and encourage and facilitate better working and co-operation between schools, local education authorities, health bodies, the independent sector and parents. A multi-agency approach up to the age of 25, with more support from the independent sector and increased opportunities for free schools, will offer choice and continuity. The Green Paper outlines how early identification can make a significant difference to outcomes for individuals, and says that teachers need to be better qualified in identifying special educational needs.

[Mr Mark Williams (Ceredigion) (LD)]

I congratulate my hon. Friend on securing the debate. He alluded to the importance of teacher training; does he agree that one of the great strengths of the Green Paper is not just the emphasis it puts on initial teacher training, but the opportunity for teachers to develop their professionalism throughout their careers? He talks about frustration more generally, but there must be frustration in the teaching profession with the fact that they have not been given the tools to deliver the kind of education that he and I want to see right across the board.

[Alun Cairns]

I am grateful to my hon. Friend for underlining an important point that is acknowledged in the Green Paper and, I think, far and wide. Teacher training is extremely important in the initial stages, but so is continued professional development. That is particularly important in relation to school exclusions. Evidence from Mencap suggests that 72% of pupils who have been excluded have special educational needs. I believe strongly that lack of support for a special need is often the cause of disruptive behaviour, and in view of the Government’s plan to change the school exclusion legislation, I hope that changes to SEN policy and teacher training will help reduce that percentage. The exclusion of those pupils is our fault, not theirs, if their needs have not been addressed. The Green Paper also considers how the statementing process should be changed so that resources are used in a more efficient way. That is the area on which I wish to focus today.

I was delighted to see that the Green Paper proposes maintaining the principle of a statement of SEN. It aims to reform the process, so that there is a single education, health and care plan, but still recognises the need for statutory protection for parents and pupils with regard to the provision of SEN support. That is great comfort and reassurance to all parents. The current system is cumbersome, costly and inconsistent, and is seen as being used by some authorities as a delaying tactic to frustrate the wishes of many parents.

In spite of that flawed process, the system is seen by parents as the back-stop that can guarantee a level of provision. If a parent can find their way through the maze, a statement can deliver what they want and what their child needs. Clearly, all sides are spending significant sums of money considering and discussing the matters. The money spent on advocacy and the challenges involved would be better spent on delivering provision. The new approach aims to make the process swifter, simpler and more efficient, but I have some questions and concerns about how and whether all aspects will work, so I want to talk the Chamber through the current process and compare that with my understanding of the proposals in the Green Paper.

The starting point is typically a parent or teacher identifying, or raising a question about, a child’s special educational need. Once the request for assessment has been made, the authority has six weeks to decide whether to assess the child. That will lead to a 10-week period in which the assessment is conducted. If a local authority questions or objects to the need for a statutory assessment, a parent will have to follow a cumbersome process to appeal via a tribunal; that comes with a significant delay. I am aware, for example, of an appeal just to obtain a statutory assessment that was registered on 10 August 2010 and not heard until mid-January 2011.

After the assessment, a decision will be made on whether a statement of SEN is needed; if it is, a proposed statement must be issued within two weeks. The parents are given the proposed statement and an opportunity to make representations within two weeks. After a further six weeks, the local authority will present its final statement.

[David Simpson (Upper Bann) (DUP)]

I congratulate the hon. Gentleman on securing this very important debate. In my constituency, there are a number of schools with children who have special needs. According to the Library research paper, on 9 March 2011, The Daily Telegraph stated:

“Thousands of children will be removed from school ‘special needs’ registers under Government plans to stop teachers over-diagnosing behaviour and learning problems.”

The parents whom I speak to have a real difficulty with that; does the hon. Gentleman agree with them?

[Alun Cairns]

I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for raising that point. That is certainly an issue that causes worry among many parents. However, we need to recognise that the school funding formula almost leads to a perverse incentive for schools to classify children as having SEN. Very often, what is needed is additional support in the classroom, rather than a classification of SEN. It is the perverse incentive that is the root of that problem, but I accept absolutely that the issue needs to be teased out and clarified while the White Paper is being drafted.

The whole statementing process is meant to take 26 weeks, but we need to add in the delays due to the tribunal, which I have mentioned. If a parent is dissatisfied with a statement, they can appeal to the tribunal again. Delays such as the August-to-January delay that I mentioned earlier in relation to the assessment appeal will also be incurred in the case of a statement appeal. Parents who have to go through two appeals and the 26-week statementing process can therefore be left waiting for a total of 16 months to get a statement confirmed. That delay in securing the right SEN support can be damaging, particularly to a young child of four, five or six, as 16 months is a significant percentage of a child’s life.

The Green Paper highlights the Government’s will to speed up the process, and proposes cutting the 26-week period to 20 weeks. That is welcome, but the wait for the tribunal hearing also needs to be addressed if we are genuinely to speed up the process from start to finish. The Green Paper, however, talks about a mediation requirement. In principle, I can see the attraction of that, but I question its merit in practice because of the new delay that that could introduce. An insistence that mediation should take place before the right to appeal would be detrimental due to that delay, and I ask the Minister to allow mediation to take place in parallel with the wait for the tribunal hearing. In reality, discussions already take place right up to the day of the tribunal. It is most frustrating for an authority to agree to something on the morning of a hearing when the parents have been asking for it for the previous six to eight months.

Furthermore, I am not wholly convinced that mediation will work in practice. Parent partnerships already exist to allow for mediation, but few people take up the option because the relationship has usually broken down. We need to consider the pressure on the parent of an autistic child who has to battle month after month with a school and a local education authority, and then face a tribunal.

The Green Paper highlights extended choice for parents, but we need to recognise that legislation already offers parents significant choice. It is often the disagreement caused by the difference between the wishes of parents and the offer from the local education authority that leads to tribunal proceedings.

[Dr William McCrea (South Antrim) (DUP)]

Might not the term “mediation” often be used to talk the parent out of getting their child statemented, and to let the school authorities off their responsibility to ensure appropriate education for the child?

[Alun Cairns]

I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for that intervention. It underlines a point that I plan to make later about the support that parents need. Mediation could possibly work, but we need to understand the breakdown in relationships and the support that parents therefore need.

I turn to the statement itself and the issues that can lead to disagreements and appeals. More often than not, draft statements are vague and imprecise. Parents will seek to make changes in order to gain an appropriately detailed statement that guarantees the provision that they need. Let me offer an example relating to the provision of speech and language therapy. A poor statement would read, “The child will have access to a communication programme,” whereas a well-prepared statement would record, “The child will have direct speech and language therapy with a therapist once a week for a period of 30 minutes.” That detail is important because if the speech and language therapist is sick for a period or goes on maternity leave, a local authority will rarely move to reappoint a suitably qualified individual, even if they can, given the shortage of therapists. If the provision is specified in a statement, parents can demand it, even from the private or third sector, if necessary. Clearly, it is in the interest of the local education authority to draft a vague statement to prevent such demands reaching the High Court.

That leads me to the backdrop of the tension that develops between parents and local authorities. Parents want a detailed, appropriate statement. They sometimes request that support be given more frequently than is offered, or seek a placement in a specific school, possibly out of county, and that has financial consequences. In a small number of cases, an independent special school is requested. Parents may even press for one-to-one support in a mainstream school. Those demands, which stem from the choice already afforded to parents in current legislation, will always have cost implications. That is usually at the core of the differences between the two parties.

Section 86 of the School Standards and Framework Act 1988 states:

“The duty imposed”—

that is, the duty on the authority to comply with parents’ preferences—

“does not apply…if compliance with the preference would prejudice the provision of efficient education or the efficient use of resources”.

A similar term is used in the Green Paper, which states on page 17:

“unless it would not meet the needs of the child”

or

“would be incompatible with the efficient education of other children”.

It is obvious why such clauses and statements need to be included in legislation and Green Papers, but as long as they are, we will always end up with parents rightly demanding more for their children and local authorities seeking to reduce provision on the basis of cost. I do not see how legislation could be drafted without such a clause to protect the public purse, but it will always be the point on which disagreements will arise.

One option could be a better definition of what a parent can expect, but that focuses on inputs rather than outputs and runs against the principle of facilitating the best outcomes possible, which is at the core of the Green Paper. I have no doubt that many measures in the Green Paper will make a significant difference in supporting children with special educational needs. Early identification, a multi-agency approach, and assessment by health visitors in particular—the number of health visitors is to increase—are extremely welcome. The simplification of school action and school action plus is welcomed by parents, because they are often seen as a delay to the statutory assessment that I referred to earlier.

[David Simpson]

The hon. Gentleman mentioned the shortage of speech and language therapists. Would he agree that that is a key component of all this? There is a major shortage of therapists across the whole of the United Kingdom, and the Government need to do something to encourage young people into that profession.

[Alun Cairns]

I am grateful for that intervention. Without a doubt, the shortage of speech and language therapy is a significant difficulty, but as I highlighted earlier, if need for it is recorded in the statement of special educational needs, parents can rightly demand it, and can even go to the High Court to secure it. I am familiar with some cases where that has been done. However, I worry about those pupils who need speech and language therapy support but who do not have a statement. The shortage of such support does not make things easy for local authorities, assuming that they have the resources to provide it, and it naturally drives up costs. I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for raising that point.

Improved training of teachers will make a positive difference in reducing special educational needs later on. The point about speech and language therapy is particularly relevant, because if support is provided early on, soon after screening at the age of two and a half, which is mentioned in the Green Paper, that can save significant sums later. I would like to believe that the Minister recognises the importance of that issue.

Budgets for parents to buy services directly will also help significantly. That is the principle of choice. One example that I can offer relates to sensory integration therapy, which local education authorities fail to recognise but the parents of autistic children value hugely. That service is provided by specially trained occupational therapists.

More explanation is needed of how budgets will be allocated, so that parents can exercise the choice and freedom that we want to give them. Will it be on a banding basis? If so, it will lead to further challenges and appeals aimed at moving the child to a higher band that would give greater access to resources and better provision. The new assessment regime and joint working with various agencies will simplify the process, but there needs to be clarification on whether there will be a single assessment regime as well.

Finally, I want to underline my concern for parents who do not have the capacity to challenge the system. This point was made earlier in an intervention. To get the best chance of securing provision, a parent may employ an advocate, independent speech and language therapists, occupational therapists and educational psychologists to give evidence to challenge the local authority’s case. After all, the local authority has ready access to such services. Clearly, that would be a significant expense for any individual or family, but if their call is that an independent special school costing, say, up to £100,000 a year is the only way to secure provision for their child, paying such experts at the appeal stage could be seen by them as an investment.

My worry is that the parents of some children with special educational needs will not have the necessary capacity; many may have special educational needs themselves. It angers me that those with the resources and the capacity who can work their way through the system will get what they need, but the children of parents who cannot afford it or cannot work their way through the system will be left without appropriate provision. I am sure that the Minister will agree that stopping those who can is not an option, and that the challenge is to deliver a system that provides the right support at the outset to those who cannot.

I am grateful for the support that I have received for this debate, and for the interventions that have been made. I hope the Minister will accept my comments as a positive welcome for the Green Paper.

[Robert Halfon (Harlow) (Con)]

I am pleased to speak in this debate under your chairmanship, Mr Brady. I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Vale of Glamorgan (Alun Cairns). He is a compassionate Conservative, and he has demonstrated that today. I was astonished at the level of expertise he displayed, and I learned a lot from his speech.

As a candidate and now as a Member of Parliament, I have been very pleased to speak to Harlow parents whose children have special needs. I am a supporter of the Harlow Parents of Autistic Children Together, or PACT, and I have often met its chair, Sam Fancett, and vice-chair, Wendy Merry, and others. They are very IT friendly, and we usually speak via Blackberry messenger. I want to raise on their behalf some problems that are sometimes thought to be little things, but actually make a big difference.

First, parents believe that it would be helpful if more special schools could specialise—for example, in autism therapy—instead of being just an alternative to mainstream schools when children can no longer cope. If that is impossible, more mainstream schools could develop a specialised autism unit on site, or a unit could be shared between several schools. At present, I understand that, if a parent chooses a school that is more suited to their child’s needs, but is outside their catchment area, they must provide their own transport, and sign a disclaimer saying that they will never request transport in future. We all know that funds are limited, but there should not be a postcode lottery in such cases. As the free school reforms come through, I urge the Government to look at home-to-school transport and access to expert special education.

Secondly, why are parents of children on the autistic spectrum, especially those with severe difficulties, unable to get a blue badge to park their car? Parents of those children struggle daily, sometimes in extremely difficult situations. They have told me that parking a car when a child is having a meltdown can be highly dangerous. The Government are cracking down on people who abuse blue badges, but will the Minister do what she can to nudge local authorities to make blue badges more available to those with autistic children or children with significant special needs? It is worth taking much stronger action against those who wrongly park in bays for disabled drivers, because that causes incredible difficulties for those with severe disabilities.

Thirdly, on special educational needs, there is a question about arbitrary limits. A constituent of mine, Jackie Stedman, has suffered a constant battle to get a good education for her two children. Again and again, she has run up against problems due to random limits on financial support, which are tied to age rather than to need, or to children’s potential to learn. I accept, of course, the overall need to cut the deficit, and to be careful with our finances, but the sums involved are not significant in the context of the overall budget—in this case, that of Essex county council.

The context is that the council pays for home-to-school transport for Jackie’s two children, who both travel in the same car to the same school, but the council is now saying that, according to the rules, it can pay for one child, and not the other, even though the car will have to make the journey anyway. The absurdity is extraordinary. That is unaffordable for the family, and it feels like a “Little Britain” sketch, when “the computer says no”, just because one of her children is now 16.

I understand the need for local government to set criteria, but the rules sometimes seem arbitrary, and hurt decent families who simply want a good education for their children. A similar problem is seen with therapies offered by local primary care trusts. Sam Fancett gives the example that not all children are offered sensory integration therapy or auditory integration therapy. It depends on their PCT, but those therapies can transform children’s lives, and drastically improve behaviour at an early age. She also queries why speech therapy seems to finish at the end of year 7. Again, that seems to be an arbitrary limit, which does not relate to children’s needs or potential.

A potential casualty of the difficult economy was going to be a Thursday evening session of respite care in a Harlow community centre called Sam’s Place. Thankfully, the council worked hard to rescue it, and I congratulate the leader of Harlow council, Andrew Johnson, Councillor Joel Charles and council officers on their hard work in achieving a solution. One of the lessons that came out of that was that most parents are happy to take on the responsibility of running services for their children, but we cannot ask them to take on legal liabilities, compliance duties and other red tape. Parents with children with special needs have enough to worry about without having to do all that. I know that the Government are looking at such matters in the context of the big society reviews, and I would be grateful if the issue could be specifically considered.

As I have suggested, the solution must involve the big society. At the moment, if someone with an autistic child wants to talk to the local education authority or PCT, it is like trying to get through to a mobile phone company with instructions to press 1, press 2 and so on. Parents need a much more personal service. That may cost a lot of money, but a reduction in the number of appeals and complaints might save money in the long run. Essex county council has been moving towards that, but the results are patchy, and I urge it to use its back-office savings to hire more, dedicated, proper relationship managers—human beings—who would understand the issues and liaise directly with families such as those in the Harlow PACT.

Another problem is that the computer always seems to say no. Why should it say no to parents who are struggling against the odds? Decisions are arbitrary or tied to arbitrary age limits and catchment areas, which are largely random or created for bureaucratic convenience.

[Alun Cairns]

My hon. Friend is making some extremely important points about the arbitrary limits. My understanding is that the legislation does not provide for such arbitrary limits. We need to provide for the child, but local authorities use the system to prevent a child from gaining access. If a parent battles through the maze of the statementing process, they may win, but bearing in mind the delays to which I referred, very few, sadly, have the resources or the capacity to do that.

[Robert Halfon]

My hon. Friend is exactly right. My point is that given what parents must face, and their difficulties with special needs children, why should they have to battle? Mrs Jackie Stedman has spent years battling with the courts and relevant authorities to try to obtain proper treatment for her children. She has often been successful, but why should she have to go through that in the first place? To borrow a phrase, our public services need to speak “human”, and that means looking at each individual case on its merits, and talking to the parents and children involved.

--- Later in debate ---

[The Minister of State, Department for Education (Sarah Teather)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Brady; I think it is the first time I have been able to do so. I begin by congratulating the hon. Member for Vale of Glamorgan (Alun Cairns) on securing the debate. I am grateful to have this opportunity so soon after we published the Green Paper. It is useful to learn what hon. Members think and hear the feedback from their constituencies. The hon. Gentleman said he hoped there would be other opportunities; I do, too. As hon. Members are able to go into their constituencies and use the consultation to talk to their local groups, they will have the opportunity to bring that feedback to the House, so that we can discuss it.

I am aware that the hon. Gentleman has a long-standing interest in the subject. He also mentioned his wife; that is a real power partnership. We are grateful for the expertise he and other hon. Members brought to a good-quality debate—Members including the hon. Member for Washington and Sunderland West (Mrs Hodgson), who spoke of her experience of battling to get support for her child.

As hon. Members will be aware, the core of the reform that we are trying to bring to the system is quite radical, and it will take time to bed down and to get it right. Unfortunately, I am not able to promise that overnight we will be able to transform the experience radically for every family who has a disabled child or one with special educational needs. In some of the things that we are doing, it will take time to change attitudes and mindsets. That is why we are taking the approach of using pilots—so that we can begin to roll them out and learn from the experience.

Core to the reform is the change to a nought-to-25 system that is more continuous. I want the system to be more focused on outcomes, rather than focusing just on inputs. A lot of the tension arises partly because people get hung up on the question, “How many hours?”, rather than thinking about where we want the child and family to be in 12 months’ time. We should have that type of conversation from the outset. We should look at the child and family and ask: what are the realistic goals? Where do we want to be next year? What are the realistic goals, long term? We should then put in place the right kind of support to get children and families into that position for the long term.

[Alun Cairns]

I recognise the focus on outcomes, but does the Minister also recognise that parents can only guarantee the inputs to deliver the outcomes through a statement of special educational needs? Of course, it will be called something different and will have a slightly different form if the Green Paper becomes a White Paper. As I tried to highlight, if a therapist is sick or on maternity leave, provision is rarely replaced during that period. We will not achieve the outcomes unless there is a guarantee of the inputs.

[Sarah Teather]

I will come to the specifics of the statementing process. The hon. Gentleman’s contribution on that was helpful. It is about getting the detail right and ensuring that the system works.

I have mentioned that I want a nought-to-25 process, and that it should be more outcomes-focused. It also needs to be a joint assessment process. My hon. Friend the Member for North Cornwall (Dan Rogerson) said that the current system was too costly, often because people go through it several times—something that the hon. Member for Vale of Glamorgan also mentioned. It is very frustrating for families if they have to go through multiple assessments, telling the same story over and over again to professionals. That wastes their time and the professionals’ time. When I have listened to families speaking about their experience, I have been struck by how traumatic it is; they relive the grief they experienced when they first had the diagnosis of the disability or special educational need. Every time they tell the story, they are effectively reliving that initial trauma. When that is combined with the frustration of feeling that nobody is listening to them, it is incredibly stressful for families.

We have to streamline the assessment process, so that families go through fewer hoops, we come up with one plan into which everybody is tied, and people know who is responsible for paying for what, rather than there being an endless fight over where that responsibility sits in different sections of the statement. That picks up the point on which the hon. Member for Vale of Glamorgan ended his contribution. At the moment, unfortunately, one needs to be highly articulate and, too often, financially able, in order to get the best out of the system. That is simply not good enough. We have to make the system simpler and more straightforward, so that every family can get what their child deserves: the best possible support and care.

As a number of hon. Members have said, the current system is cumbersome, costly and inconsistent. The first thing we have tried to do is take some of the adversarial nature out of the process. Again, I cannot promise that we will never have tension between families and services providing for their child; that is not realistic. However, there is a lot we can do to reduce that, so that it does not come immediately, and so that we change the nature of the conversation from the outset.

We want to begin with the idea of a local offer, so that when someone first encounters the local authority or health service, they are not told: “Prove that you need help.” Local services should be coming to parents and saying, “This is what we normally provide; now let’s have the discussion about how we tailor that, and what we need to do for you in your situation.” That should change the relationship from the beginning. That again was a point made by the hon. Member for Vale of Glamorgan. The attempt to get people to talk at the end of the process can be unsuccessful if trust broke down right at the beginning. That was highlighted for us by the Council for Disabled Children, which spoke passionately about the need for a local offer. In areas where that has been developed, it has changed the relationship from the beginning. That has been much more fruitful; even if parents decide to go all the way through the special educational needs and disability tribunal, the nature of the conversation can be much better from the beginning.

Mainstream schools need to be clearer with families about what they would normally provide for children with a range of learning difficulties, disabilities or additional needs. At the moment, there is great inconsistency. It can be difficult for parents to work out whether their child’s needs are greater than those normally provided for in a school—the legal definition of special educational needs. As a consequence, local authorities complain that the tribunal will often make inconsistent decisions about whether a statement is required. It is not in anyone’s interest for all that to be so cloak-and-dagger. Much more can be clearer from the beginning.

The hon. Member for Vale of Glamorgan said that a lot of the detail did not work. He mentioned the tension between outcomes and incomes-focused criteria. I recognise his point, but if we begin with outcomes, it changes the nature of the discussion. We sometimes hear that families will cling to a statement that may not be suitable for their child’s needs, as those needs have changed. That is not in the interests of the family. If we can focus more on the outcomes and the support that we need to provide for a family as we move to an agreed set of goals, families are less likely to cling to unsuitable provision, and more likely to be willing to accept changes that might be right for their child. Focusing on outcomes rather than inputs requires a huge change of mindset. As I said earlier, of all the things that we are trying to do, that will probably take the longest to bed down.

My hon. Friend the Member for North Cornwall said that going around the loop repeatedly is often expensive. If we do not get children the support that they need early enough, that is also expensive; a greater, more serious intervention might be needed later. Many of the families that we spoke to, and the voluntary organisations that we worked with when drawing up the Green Paper, told us that parents use the expensive independent school not always for the education that it provides, but often because it has therapists on tap, particularly speech and language therapists. As a result of the frustration of not being able to get speech and language therapy through other means, some parents will push all the way through the tribunal for the expensive independent provision—but that, of course, comes out of the local authority’s budget, and not the health service budget. In the end, there is no incentive for local services to work together, or to provide a plan that should be paid for jointly. There would be significantly less cost to the public purse in the long term if we could get it right from the beginning.

My hon. Friend the Member for Vale of Glamorgan spoke about delays in the system. It is clearly ridiculous for small children to have to wait six months for the necessary support, because they are at a critical period in their development. Anything that we can do to speed up that process is important. I hope that the joint process, the single assessment process, will remove some of the delays. Many delays are the result of local authorities having to co-ordinate the expertise of various professionals; that is particularly so with professional input on health.

One of our first priorities, even before we get to the joint process, is the statementing process; we want people to contribute sooner, more quickly, more rapidly and more efficiently. It is not good for families to have to wait. The nub of what we are doing is reducing delay in the short term. As for the longer term, I hope that the pilots will show that having one process speeds things up. That is a key objective in getting people to work together.

[Alun Cairns]

The Minister rightly focuses on the cut proposed in the Green Paper from 26 weeks to 20 weeks. I referred in my speech to a delay in a tribunal taking place; it took from 10 August last year until mid-January for the case to come to the tribunal. That was far longer than it took to get the published statement. We should not forget that a case could be taken to tribunal twice—once regarding the statutory assessment, and once regarding the statement. What consideration has the Minister given to that? It would be a significant step forward if that wait was curtailed to a reasonable length.

[Sarah Teather]

The hon. Gentleman need not panic; I wrote everything down. I may not be able to cover every point that he raised as I cannot scribble that quickly, but he raises the very point that I wanted to deal with next.

I turn first, however, to what the hon. Gentleman said about mediation; he asked whether it would introduce extra delay. That is absolutely not the intention. When we roll it out, we want to make it clear to local authorities that the addition of mediation should not delay the process of going to the tribunal. The quality of conversation ought to be better from the outset, so I hope that the process will be more successful.

The other key point to make about mediation is that it needs to be high-quality. If people are simply going through the motions, it will add extra frustration for everyone concerned. In the Green Paper, we point to some examples of good practice, particularly in the west midlands. Independent mediation there has made a real difference to the solutions that parents are being given, and people have not had to go through the tribunal process. Parents were happier because they had much better conversations with local providers.

I turn to tribunal delays. I was concerned to hear of the example given by the hon. Gentleman. The tribunal in England aims to hear cases within 22 weeks of the appeal being registered. We regularly meet the tribunal at an official level and raise the matter with it, but we will raise the specific point that the hon. Gentleman makes. It would help to know whether the case was in England or Wales.

[Alun Cairns]

It was in England.

[Sarah Teather]

That is helpful. We will raise that case with the tribunal. Personal budgets were alluded to by a number of Members, particularly the hon. Member for Harlow (Robert Halfon). I hope that they will cut some of the frustration for families. They are a choice, not an obligation; families will not be obliged to take up personal budgets. We realise that not every family will want to do so, but some will believe that they would be better able to make choices about how family life was run if they had the freedom to decide how to care for their child. That needs to be trialled. Some small-scale pilots have been run for disabled children in recent years with some elements of the health budget, and we will build on that.

In the Green Paper, we are consulting on what should be included in the scheme. One suggestion is that we include school transport, which was mentioned by the hon. Member for Harlow. I hope that will give families more freedom to decide which school their children could attend. The obvious thing to include in personal budgets is key equipment such as speech and language aids, which were mentioned earlier, and wheelchairs. I have experience of this as a constituency MP, and I know from being involved with the Green Paper that delays in the provision of wheelchairs are unfortunately extremely common. Indeed, the wait can sometimes be so long that children have grown out of the wheelchair by the time it arrives. That is utterly ridiculous. It is a waste of public money, and the impact on the child can be considerable. Indeed, one child in my constituency was not able to attend school while waiting for a new wheelchair because the old one was the wrong size and was giving him sores. That is not good enough.

Another obvious candidate for a personal budget is therapy, particularly speech and language therapy. That raises the subject of adequate provision, which was mentioned by the hon. Member for Harlow. I have no doubt that the joint strategic needs assessment process needs to be better at picking up needs, from the ground upwards. The Green Paper commits the Department of Health to ensuring that the needs assessment is done in a way that responds to the needs of families with disabled children in the area. I hope that that deals with the point raised by the hon. Gentleman.