Disabled Students

Baroness Jones of Whitchurch Excerpts

Wednesday 2nd July 2014 Grand Committee

[Baroness Jones of Whitchurch (Lab)]

My Lords, I am very grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Addington, for tabling this Question for Short Debate and for raising a number of crucial issues about the lack of continuity as young disabled people progress through the education system and into the world of work. I am also grateful to him for prompting me to revisit some of the detailed work that we did on the Children and Families Bill and look again at its progress towards implementation. When I looked back at the Bill, I was reassured to see that it came out of our scrutiny process in much better shape, and with more clarity about rights and responsibilities, than when we started. In that case, it was a job well done. I agree with the noble Lord that if we get the implementation right, it will turn out to be a transformative Bill and make a big difference to the lives of many young people with disabilities and special educational needs for many years to come. The challenge for us at this stage is about implementation.

The theme quite rightly established in the Bill was the need to be proactive. There is the need to have joined-up provision and the need for agencies to talk to each other and take joint responsibility for services. This was encapsulated in the notion of the education, health and care plans. It would be interesting to have an update on the progress being made to establish these local joint mechanisms, which are needed to make the care plans a reality. Perhaps the Minister could update us about what is being put in place to monitor the rollout of the Act to ensure that it becomes a reality on the ground and, in particular, to look at what local authorities are doing to fulfil their obligations in this regard.

In the mean time, the noble Lord, Lord Addington, has identified some rather glaring gaps in our new model of information-sharing and joint working. It was interesting that in the initial response to the consultation on the code of practice, which we received a copy of and which was in the Library pack, the FE sector said that it was rather in the dark as to how the plans would affect it. I am not totally surprised about that because during the course of the Bill, I did not really get the sense that it was engaged in the debate or really understood what the implications for that sector would be. It is helpful that the code has now been redrafted to spell out the FE sector’s statutory duties more clearly. For example, there are the reciprocal duties to co-operate with local authorities on arrangements for all young people with SEN; to admit a young person if the institution is named in the education, health and care plan; and to provide the right support for students with SEN disabilities.

The list of types of support which should be provided and the access to funds are also spelt out. However, underpinning the code there is also an expectation that local authorities will provide top-up funding. It is clear that there is a potential pinch point for students caught in the middle of these funding negotiations. As all noble Lords will know, local authority funding is in a particular crisis at the moment. Can the Minister explain what rights young people have to be provided with that funding to ensure that they have the right facilities when they go into college and can make their college years a success?

The code also makes it clear that colleges should be involved in transition planning between school and college to ensure a successful transition into college life. However, underpinning that again, what guarantees do young people have that the assessments of their needs that were made during their school education will be carried automatically into their time at college? What is to stop an FE college asking for new assessments to be made—trying, if you like, to delay the inevitable or to put off its responsibilities? In addition, there is also all the extra bureaucracy and resources involved and, obviously, the extra upset that will be caused to young people, who feel that the original assessment that was made about them is now being challenged. Where, then, is that reassurance of continuity which was at the heart of the Act and can we be assured that that will follow through in the way the FE sector receives students?

Meanwhile, the noble Lord, Lord Addington, and the noble Baroness, Lady Uddin, quite rightly raised concerns around the changes to the disabled students’ allowance that were recently announced by the Universities Minister. That announcement goes completely against the spirit and intent of the Children and Families Act. By any measure, it is a blatant cost-cutting exercise because, as we know, it has been judged that it will result in potential cuts to DSA funding in the region of about 60%. One can see why it is attractive to the department at this stage. As a result, only those students with complex disabilities will receive support. Many students will lose access to vital equipment which helps with their day-to-day learning and will lose vital specialist support. I do not claim to understand completely all the technical challenges which the noble Lord raised this evening. They made sense when he was explaining it but I would not be able to repeat it all.

[Lord Addington]

If they made sense only when I was explaining them, I have failed.

[Baroness Jones of Whitchurch]

As I said, the noble Lord explained it very well and it made sense, but I obviously have a lot more to learn about the technical facilities that are out there and about how they can be embraced by people with disabilities. However, it is clear that unless the funding is there and the DSA takes account of those up-to-date technologies, we will have failed. The noble Lord made the point that students with dyslexia and dyspraxia, for example, are likely to be particularly badly affected. I also accept the point the noble Baroness raised about autism. Both of those areas are sometimes difficult to define.

One of the concerns about this is that students will undoubtedly be put off from applying to higher education, which of course used to be the case in the old days; they never went to higher education because they never felt that the support would be there. There is a danger that they will fall back on less appropriate post-school choices. The problem with that is that, if nothing else, it runs the risk of being even more expensive for the Government to support. We therefore have a challenge to ensure that every child gets the right to have the best education and the best outcomes that they will be able to succeed in.

Can the Minister explain what discussions took place between the Department of Education and BIS before the announcement was made? Does she accept that the cutbacks in DSA funding go against the whole principle of supportive and integrated progression in education for young people with SEN and disabilities? Are we sure that BIS understood all the good work that was done around the Children and Families Bill? Has it got the message and taken it on board in the way that it is beginning to review the DSA?

Finally, the support that young people receive from nought to 25 should mean a smooth transition into the world of work. We worked hard during the passage of the Children and Families Bill to put those mechanisms in place as well. Again, the noble Lord referred to better access to work placements and apprenticeships, on which we spent considerable time. However, since there are now worrying signs that Ministers in BIS have not bought into that agenda, can the Minister reassure us that that active liaison is taking place between the departments to make sure that, not just in the letter but in practice, funding and support will be made available to all young people so that they all have the best opportunities to make the best of their lives and to thrive and succeed at work? I look forward to her response.