SEND and Alternative Provision

Baroness Barran Excerpts

Thursday 9th March 2023 Lords Chamber

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Department for Education (Baroness Barran) (Con)]

I thank both the noble Baroness, Lady Twycross, and the noble Lord, Lord Addington, for welcoming our announcement last week and I will do my best to address some of the points that they raised. I think I heard a shared ambition across the House for children with special educational needs. Last week, we set out our ambition to make sure that all children, but particularly these children, fulfil their potential, to rebuild the parental trust the noble Lord, Lord Addington, referred to, which has been eroded, and to provide financial sustainability.

Much of the questioning focused on timeliness and timing, and I will endeavour to reassure the House about the speed of delivery. But, as we discussed with your Lordships in relation to the children’s social care reforms, the balance between ambition and the quality of implementation is incredibly sensitive and delicate, and extremely important. This is not the first time that a Government have tried to improve support for children with special educational needs and disabilities, particularly those in the care of the local authority. If this were easy, Governments would have cracked it previously. But we are determined to make this work, in terms of both the vision and the quality of implementation.

As your Lordships know, we will establish a single national system that will, importantly, focus on children from minority communities and children in the care of the local authority. We will have the systems of accountability, clarity and transparency for parents, which means that we very much hope and believe that that will work better than the system we have today and will achieve good outcomes for those children.

We are laser focused on the early identification of educational needs and ensuring that high-quality support is in place, without the need for a diagnosis or a label. Crucial within that is the work happening with the workforce, some of which has already started. The first cohort of early years SENCOs have completed their training, and they will re-enter the workforce. The House is aware that we funded training for up to 5,000 SENCOs in early years, which is obviously not the only place we should have them, but it is an absolutely critical place. We have already funded additional educational psychologists and have announced more funding for an additional 400, all of whom are critical to delivering this plan.

Similarly, when we recently reviewed initial teacher training, we made adjustments to the training for early career teachers so that there is a focus in their courses on how you make classroom adjustments and how you can be truly inclusive in your classroom for children with additional needs. Obviously, as we said in the Statement, that work continues at pace this year to try to identify whether other aspects within the mainstream workforce can support this.

Last night, I met the chair of a multi-academy trust, and I said, “I’ve got the Statement tomorrow; tell me what you do to support your children with special educational needs and disabilities in your school”. The answer was having twice as many teaching staff per pupil and incredibly regular communication with home. Not every school or trust will be in a position to do that, but that approach of putting children, resource and communication with parents first struck me as perhaps something that we aspire to in this area. The national standards will also place much greater emphasis on the role that mainstream settings will play, but of course we want to be sure that children and young people with special educational needs who need an education, health and care plan—and their parents—have a less adversarial system.

Therefore, we are adding resources to make sure that we have real clarity of need, in terms of speed. We have been and are adding resource for clarity of support for children and, critically, we are adding capacity in the availability of new schools. The House has regularly talked about the fact that some children are sent very far from home, which is clearly far from ideal. For the record, we have delivered 92 new special schools and 49 are in the pipeline, seven of which will open in September. Last week, we announced a further 33 local authority areas that will get a new special school. Capacity is absolutely going into the sector.

[Baroness Wyld (Con)]

My Lords, I welcome the plan and declare my interests as a non-executive board member at Ofsted and a member of the court of the University of Newcastle upon Tyne. I want to ask about an important part of the plan, which is transition to adult services, employment or higher education, which the Government have set out clearly as an ambition. Can my noble friend say a little about how the Government will assess whether things are getting better and whether the experience of when children are often at their most vulnerable is improving? What will be the measurement for that?

[Baroness Barran (Con)]

My noble friend will have seen from the plan that, particularly in relation to employment, we are investing £18 million to double the capacity of the supported internships programme. We will work with the Department for Work and Pensions on the adjustment passport so that young people do not have to retell their story endlessly and that employers are clear about what support they need. On accountability, together with parents, local authorities and health partners, we will develop local inclusion plans and local inclusion dashboards—I appreciate that that sounds slightly Sir Humphrey-ish, if that is a term. Importantly, parents, providers and local authorities will be able to track and see the impact of their plans, to compare their performance to that of other local authorities, and to understand how they can build, improve and learn. We are committed to improving the quality of data that we use so that everyone in the sector, who are all doing their absolute best to deliver for those young people, can work as effectively as possible.

[Baroness Blower (Lab)]

My Lords, I am sure that no one would want to understate the importance of making sure that we do everything we can for children and young people with special educational needs and disabilities, and their families, but I believe that a lot of teachers have lost trust and confidence in the system, partly because of the £6,000 question but also because it is quite opaque in some cases, so a new approach is helpful.

It is good that the Statement talked about reducing the reliance on education, health and care plans, so that there can be access to what is ordinarily available in mainstream classrooms. Is the Minister aware that there are some difficulties for children in year 6 in accessing a place in a secondary school, because that school is able to say that it cannot meet the needs of that plan? Frankly, it is terrible that children are made to feel as though they are not wanted. I would be pleased if the Minister were able to say something about that.

I do not think that there is complete confidence in the profession about ITT, so I hope that we will continue to look at that. Finally, if we are going to rely continuously on teaching assistants, who do a fantastic job, we need to have regard not just to their training but to their level of remuneration.

[Baroness Barran (Con)]

On the noble Baroness’s first point about teachers having lost confidence in the system, I hope that some of the work that we are doing will help rebuild that. As she knows, the national standards will set much clearer definitions of need in particular, rather than necessarily diagnosis, so that there is clarity and consistency across schools and local authority areas.

We are also producing a number of practice guides for teachers and schools, which we hope will be really helpful. They focus on what are perhaps three of the most prevalent and important areas—autism, speech and language, and mental health and well-being—which, as the noble Baroness knows very well, are all extremely important issues. We are establishing the nine regional expert partnerships to create this co-operation between parents, local authorities, schools and health, ensuring that whatever we are doing is tested in practice to make sure that it works in the interests of both the child and the workforce.

I imagine that the question on the admissions issue is, in part, an extension of the first question on confidence. The other thing we see which is really different in different parts of the country is the degree of co-operation between real specialists. In some places, there are providers of special schools with huge expertise, which are in a position to work very collaboratively with their local mainstream schools, but that is less the case in other places. In the areas of alternative provision, behaviour management and support, and special educational needs and disabilities, that collaboration and co-operation is felt to be a really productive and rich place to start to ensure that every child can get to the school they want to go to.

[The Lord Bishop of St Albans]

My Lords, I too thank His Majesty’s Government for the improvement plan. I commend what they are doing to try to get a much more integrated approach and some of the resources mentioned in the plan. However, I share the concern raised by the noble Baroness, Lady Twycross, about implementation. The stories I pick up from grass-roots situations in Bedfordshire and Hertfordshire, where I serve, show that there are still some very serious problems, and some children are now being failed immediately.

I will ask a couple of questions. First, having a specialised workforce in place will be crucial, so can the Minister tell us what support they expect to receive from the DHSC, especially as such a great strain is placed on the health and social care workforce? The second question is about diagnosis, so that children can have access to the support mentioned in the content of the plan. What support is the DHSC able to provide to CAMHS to ensure that there is support to deliver this plan?

[Baroness Barran (Con)]

As the right reverend Prelate said, that co-operation between health, education and children’s social care is absolutely critical, so that they are closely joined together. We will bring more clarity and clearer accountability through new inspections conducted jointly by Ofsted and the CQC, which will focus very much on outcomes and experiences for children, young people and their families. In turn, that will feed into and reflect the local inclusion plans, where health is a critical partner.

On issues around the mental health workforce, the right reverend Prelate will be aware that we are doing a lot of work to ensure that we have direct support in schools, so that, wherever possible, mental health issues do not need to escalate to CAMHS.

[Baroness Brinton (LD)]

My Lords, I declare my interests as a vice-president of the Local Government Association and as one of the infantry working on the Children and Families Bill, as were other Members of your Lordships’ House. We felt that that was a ground-breaking change to the system, but one of the fundamental reasons it has failed is because the funding, both for children and for the assessment of children and young people, was not ring-fenced, causing real problems for both local authorities and schools. So will the Minister ensure that there will be ring-fencing for this funding, because it is not fair for local authorities to have to find it from other resources, when other resources are clearly being so pressured?

I also want to follow on from the question asked by the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of St Albans and focus on those children who will need an EHCP, especially the health element. For those with high needs in terms of physical disabilities, the proposal is to move much more to special schools, but for some young people special schools do not actually help their academic achievements because the standards are set so low—so will that be addressed in this or in relationships with schools?

Finally, those who were there for debates on the Children and Families Bill will know that there was ground-breaking statutory guidance for support for children in school with medical conditions. That has now been watered down. Will it be strengthened to ensure that every child with a serious medical condition gets the support that they need to go on school trips and take part in everyday activities?

[Baroness Barran (Con)]

In relation to funding, I do not fully recognise the picture that the noble Baroness paints. Revenue funding in this area is up 50% since 2019, and we have committed £2.6 billion in high-needs capital funding to build, as I have already mentioned, 92 new special schools that are being delivered, with 49 in the pipeline and 33 on their way.

For children with physical disabilities at a high level, the aspiration is absolutely clear—we need to get the right place for every child, including those children. Therefore, if it is possible, we will include those children in the mainstream, as that clearly is the aspiration and direction of our work. I shall need to revert to the noble Baroness, as she has raised this issue with me before and my memory fails me on the current status of her final point.

[Lord Young of Cookham (Con)]

My Lords, like others I welcome the provisions in the Statement, which will provide a better deal for parents and children with special needs, and I welcome the interaction between Ministers and noble Lords during the consultation. On workforce training, does my noble friend accept that the new NPQ will need significant adjustment, if it is going to meet the needs of the SENCOs envisaged in the Statement? The current NASENCO course that it replaces is for 600 hours. Does my noble friend agree that the strength of those courses needs to be carried through into the proposed NPQ?

I welcome the national standard as it will remove the postcode lottery. Can my noble friend assure me that the Treasury will have nothing to do with those national standards as a means of controlling costs, that costs will be based on the needs of children and that there will be the resources behind them to provide the finances for the EHCPs?

[Baroness Barran (Con)]

In relation to my noble friend’s first question, of course the new NPQ will definitely learn from the NASENCO qualification, but its focus, to put it in simple terms, will be very practical and on the classroom. It tries to address the practical requirements of teachers in the classroom, and it will have less of the academic and research focus that has traditionally been associated with the NASENCO.

In relation to not letting the Treasury anywhere near that, clearly, I would have to reserve judgment—but I hear the spirit of my noble friend’s question. The important thing is that the standards are being developed in collaboration with families, local authorities, health providers and schools. There are tensions pulling in different directions, but there is a shared aspiration for the earliest possible intervention, and the earlier that we can intervene the less likely it is that many children will need to go into specialist provision and need to have an EHCP. Therefore, absolutely front and centre, the most important thing is that that is the right outcome for that child, but the secondary helpful benefit is that it then frees up funding, as my noble friend suggests, for those children who need an EHCP.

[Lord Watson of Invergowrie (Lab)]

My Lords, there are many welcome aspects of the Statement, but it seems the Government still have not grasped the urgency of the situation surrounding children with special educational needs and disabilities. A SEND pupil in year 7 when the review was launched in 2019 will have left school by the time the reforms are implemented—if indeed they are fully implemented—by 2026. That means, as the right reverend Prelate said, that a child being failed now will continue to be failed, which is just unacceptable.

I have two questions for the Minister on alternative provision, and they go to moral leadership from the Government and from senior practitioners. Will the reforms force mainstream schools to accept vulnerable pupils presented to them? Will those reforms force mainstream schools to pass on funding for children that they exclude to alternative provision? Because, at the moment, neither of those are guaranteed.

[Baroness Barran (Con)]

I really do not accept the premise of the noble Lord’s first statement. I am sure he would not want us to implement everything tomorrow and then find that it is not having the impact we want. We live in a world where we have to make sure that this works in practice; hence the nine regional expert partnerships where we will be testing everything. As I already mentioned, we have already made reforms in terms of teacher training; we have already increased our expenditure by 50% since 2019; we have already massively increased the capital budget and delivered more places; we have already started to increase the number of educational psychologists; and we are already delivering qualified SENCOs for early years pupils. So, there is a great deal happening that will help that year 7 child before they leave school, and I hope the noble Lord accepts that.

As for forcing children into mainstream, and forcing the funding to follow them, I just think it is not the approach that we are taking. It is not that we do not take this seriously or that we do not have grave concerns about children who are excluded from school and never return: those are key metrics that we will be tracking, but we need to work with people and make sure that we deliver for those children. As always, we will be looking at the areas that are doing this brilliantly today, learning from them and working with areas that have perhaps not yet reached that level of practice and supporting them to deliver for those children. I share the noble Lord’s concerns about those very children.

[Baroness Garden of Frognal (LD)]

My Lords, a lot of the Statement is welcome, but it does seem to be jam tomorrow. I have two questions. The first is that children with special educational needs learn differently: what efforts are being made to ensure that their teachers understand that while they do not have to work harder, they do have to work more smartly to understand the different ways in which SEND pupils learn? Secondly, Scope has found that SEND pupils are twice as likely to be unemployed as non-disabled people, so what are the Government doing to give young people with SEND the skills and opportunities to enable them to be employed?

[Baroness Barran (Con)]

The Government absolutely recognise the point the noble Baroness raises. We are already providing professional development focused on special educational needs and disabilities; we have online training; we run live webinars; we offer peer mentoring for school and college staff through our universal services programme; and we aim to reach at least 70% of schools and FE colleges each year until 2025, while also expanding the assistive technology pilot, which is expanding training to increase staff confidence in using assistive technology. In my response to the noble Baroness, Lady Wyld, I touched on some of the measures that we are taking to support people with disabilities and additional needs into the workforce.

[Lord Bellingham (Con)]

My Lords, I too warmly welcome the White Paper today, particularly the new national standards plans. The Minister is aware that very often EHCPs and indeed tribunals get badly delayed because of a shortage of available educational psychologists. I looked at page 52 of the White Paper, and the new money for training educational psychologists is very welcome, but can she give some indication to the House as to the actual numbers of new educational psychologists we will see?

[Baroness Barran (Con)]

I thank my noble friend. We are anticipating an additional 400 educational psychologists from the funding that we have just announced.

[Baroness Bennett of Manor Castle (GP)]

My Lords, I am going to do something unusual: agree with the point in the Statement about providers doing a brilliant job. I say that in reference to a visit I made, with the Learn with the Lords scheme, to the North West Kent Alternative Provision Service in Gravesend, which is an absolutely amazing institution; I would commend to all noble Lords the opportunity to visit an institution like that. It was the first time that Learn with the Lords has ever visited an alternative provision site and it is well worth praising.

I declare my position as a vice-president of the Local Government Association. I have two quick questions. First, there is concern that the £70 million of funding for implementation will be inadequate; will this be subject to regular review with the potential for further inputs, if it proves insufficient?

Secondly, I reflect on a meeting I had this week with the disabled Green groups. Pupils often need transport to access special schools and alternative provision; I know there is a real issue about the quality and safety of provision in Leicester at the moment, and I think that may be a broader problem around the country. What are the Government doing to ensure that there is enough transport so that pupils can get safely and appropriately to this provision?

[Baroness Barran (Con)]

With regard to the noble Baroness’s first question, we have obviously done some pretty careful costings to reach our figure of £70 million but, equally, there is a massive commitment from the Government to deliver on this. The noble Baroness asked if we would keep this under review; clearly, we will do so.

In relation to her question regarding transport, that is very much part of thinking about a local inclusion plan and making sure that it really thinks through the experience of the child or young person and their families, and what is practical, realistic and safe for them to access the education that they need.