Children and Families Bill

Baroness Jones of Whitchurch Excerpts

Tuesday 17th December 2013 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Howarth of Breckland]

My Lords, I understand that the Government probably do not want to increase the level of bureaucracy in local authorities in terms of information gathering. I also understand that they possibly do not want to have centralisation when one of their main tenets is to decentralise to local government. That being said, however, successive Governments have failed to get this right. Those of us who were involved in trying to implement the Chronically Sick and Disabled Persons (Amendment) Act 1976, which was a long time ago, remember that one of its main provisions was to try to get decent data on which to make strategic planning.

The only point I really want to make is that there is a conflict between that wish not to increase bureaucracy and not to be able to get consistent data on the same basis across the whole of the local authority areas in order to plan. It is not just local authorities which will be affected. I spend a lot of my time in charities. They need to plan their strategy for some very large amounts of provision. I have chaired a number of committees where we have needed data in order to make a decision as to how we are going to move resources from one area to another. If you do not have that information, you can get that wrong. I would like to know how the Minister thinks that that kind of strategic planning can be carried out when the data lack that clear underlying consistency but at the same time I recognise the difficulties that it may cause in other areas of the Government’s plan.

[Baroness Jones of Whitchurch (Lab)]

My Lords, I support Amendment 18C and very much echo the arguments put forward by my noble friend Lady Wilkins and other noble Lords in this short debate.

Clause 22 already sets out that it is a requirement on local authorities to identify all children in their area with SEN. The Government obviously intend this data gathering to take place and this work to be done; otherwise they would not have put this in the Bill. It therefore needs to be collected and collated in an organised and effective way. It cannot be argued that it is an extra administrative burden when the basic requirement for the information to be gathered is already in the Bill. Noble Lords have raised genuine concerns about the quality of data in the past and the challenge of improving that quality in the future. I would also like to ask the Minister how the Government, if they think that it is important for the information to be collected, intend to make sure that the quality is delivered so that a proper planning process can take place. Obviously, it is necessary to have this information as a precursor to planning service delivery for all those people with SEN in local authorities.

The amendment is partially about transparency. It is about making sure that the data are not only collected but shared in an appropriate way so that they help both planners and service users to have a more informed input into the local offer and help devise better services in the future. The data might also have the advantage of providing isolated families with the knowledge of how many other families, children and young people in their area share a similar type of SEN or disability, which may help to bring people together.

The amendment is very much in the spirit and intent of the local offer, which is designed to help parents, children and young people shape services for the future. That is part of an ongoing debate that we have been having. The data collection and the quality of that data are crucial to help make this happen. Therefore, I hope that the Minister will see the wisdom in the amendment and will be able to support it.

[Lord Nash]

My Lords, I would like to thank the noble Baroness, Lady Wilkins, for raising this important issue and noble Lords who have spoken on this matter. I accept noble Lords’ concerns on this. I understand that the noble Baroness’s purpose behind tabling the amendment is to put, as the noble Baroness, Lady Howarth, has said, local authorities and schools in a better position to make good commissioning decisions. Good commissioning is clearly an important underpinning to the reforms that we are making and the Bill already provides for joint commissioning arrangements across education, health and care for the provision that is reasonably required for local children and young people with SEN. That commissioning will be informed by the local joint strategic needs assessment and the data that are already available on these children and young people.

I accept absolutely that good data need to be available to inform commissioning, but I do not think that the local offer is the right place to publish that data. The purpose of the local offer is to set out what provision children, young people and families can expect in their local areas and it is to be used as a vehicle for discussion about the development of local services. It is not designed to publish information on the numbers of children and young people in the area with different types of SEN. It would not be appropriate to clutter up the local offer with such data. We accept that that information will be material to discussions about the development of provision in the local area, but that information is available elsewhere.

The department already collects data from schools and local authorities on the number of children with special educational needs and publishes this annually on the department’s website. This includes data about the number of children by type of special educational need and we will be expanding this information. At present, we publish data by type of need for children at school action plus and with SEN statements. However, as we move to the new system for school-based SEN support, we will also publish data by type of need for children who are currently at school action.

For disabled children, local authorities are already under a duty to maintain a register of disabled children and young people under Section 17 of, and Schedule 2 to, the Children Act 1989. The draft, new SEN code of practice reminds local authorities of that duty. The department also collects data on children in the early years through the early years census. For post-16, the Education Funding Agency and the Skills Funding Agency also collect data on young people in the further education sector, through the individualised learner record on a range of types of need. Requiring local authorities to publish this data in the local offer would just replicate data that is already available.

So far as bringing together these different data sets into one place is concerned, as I said, I do not believe that the local offer is the appropriate place to do this, and I do not think it is right that central government should impose on local authorities something that they should already be doing. Some local authorities may well be poor at carrying out their duties in this regard, but that is not a legislative issue: it is a matter of practice. We have made it clear in the code that local authorities have this duty.

The noble Lord, Lord Low, talked about incomplete data. It is true that SEN data from the early years census, although available on request, is not routinely published publicly, but we will make sure in future that it will be and will be linked up to the main SEN statistical publication. I assure noble Lords that the department is thinking about what the new arrangements in the Bill imply for data collection and we are seeing where there are possibilities for greater clarity and the joining up of data sets. The post-16 data that are collected by the department, the Education Funding Agency and the Skills Funding Agency are publicly available on a number of websites, and we are looking at ways to bring these together for greater clarity.

Indeed, more generally, we are looking to see how data can be brought together to reflect the new nought to 25 arrangements under the Bill. We will also consider whether there should be a collection of disability data from schools. I would be happy to discuss this further with the noble Baroness and any other noble Lords who are interested. On that basis, I ask the noble Baroness to withdraw her amendment.