Children and Families Bill

Baroness Sharp of Guildford Excerpts

Tuesday 2nd July 2013 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Sharp of Guildford]

My Lords, I, too, welcome the broad thrust of this Bill. It is a wide-ranging Bill with much in it to welcome. As always, the devil is in the detail. As the Minister made clear, it is a Bill that, unusually, comes to us having had considerable scrutiny in the other place, partly as a result of the work done in this House by the Select Committee on Adoption Legislation, and the adoption clauses have taken much that it recommended. Parts 6, 7 and 8, on paternal leave with flexibility and so forth, mentioned by my noble friend Lady Perry, owe a great deal to my honourable friend Jo Swinson in the other place.

As is the case with many noble Lords, my interest in the Bill centres on Part 3 and special educational needs. This is because I have been for some time a governor of a primary school in Guildford with responsibility for special educational needs. As such, I shared the frustration of my honourable friend Sarah Teather when she was the Minister responsible for special educational needs at the Department for Education and published the Green Paper, Support and Aspiration, which preceded this Bill. She said that the aim is to stop the agonising battle that parents face in going from pillar to post to get the support they need.

Now we have these education, health and care plans which are to replace statements and aim to provide the joined-up thinking and action that have so often been absent in the present policies. These plans are now, where appropriate, to apply to all children from pre-school through to 25, an extension which I welcome particularly because we all know that early intervention, if possible, can be the most effective action. Many of us have seen cases of young people leaving school or college at 16 or 18 who have sorely needed extra support and help and have not had it.

I am concerned, however, about the group of children who are currently classed as having special educational needs but do not merit a statement—those who are under school action or school action plus, as it is called. They are in the majority because of the 1.4 million children in this country classified as having special educational needs, 85% are under school action or school action plus and will not get statements. Can the Minister clarify the situation? My understanding is that, as now, the school will be responsible for providing services for these people and, in particular, it will be for the SENCOs mentioned by the noble Baroness, Lady Morris, to make sure that these young people receive the services they need.

Many primary schools, such as my own, concentrate now on individual learning plans and some very good, school-based plans are put into action. However, this puts a great deal of emphasis on the training of the SENCOs and teachers in schools to be much more knowledgeable about special educational needs, a point mentioned by my noble friend Lord Storey. We need to be aware that these young people will still have needs that need to be addressed by the school and that the school will not necessarily receive the support from the local authority that it has had in the past. I understand that schools will be able to use the local offer outlined in Clause 30 but that local authorities do not have any longer a responsibility for providing specialist services to the schools which have backed up the SENCOs. I wonder whether this will cause some gaps in services that we ought to be aware of and consider.

Like others, I welcome the idea of joined-up thinking and the bringing together of health, social care and educational needs. In the past, in my experience, there have been many letdowns on the health side. We have not had the speech therapy or educational psychology support that we have wanted from the National Health Service. I am delighted that it now has a duty. I echo those who have suggested that there ought also to be a duty to provide on the social care front and I would like to see that.

I am worried about the local offer under which the local authority has to set out information about the education, health and social care services it expects to be available locally. However, there is no requirement on local agencies to provide these specific services and I share the doubts expressed by many of those who have been briefing us as to whether, given the financial pressures on local authorities and the general running down of their education departments, local authorities will be in a position to offer a comprehensive spread of services. The Select Committee in the other place called for minimum standards to be put in place for this local offer and I wonder whether the Minister can tell us whether the department is minded to heed this recommendation.

I am particularly concerned about the position of further education, where there seems to be a number of barriers in the way of creating the seamless transition to which we all aspire. One such barrier is finance. The new funding system which came into play this year is proving exceptionally difficult and complicated to deal with. Many colleges are finding it extremely time consuming. They often have to negotiate funding on an almost student-by-student basis. This is very awkward, especially when they are dealing with a number of local authorities. Can the Minister give any assurance that these funding issues will be resolved before the new education, health and care plans come into operation next year?

There is also a question as to why the words “must have regard to the young person’s age” are used several times in the Bill in clauses relating to financial decisions about support for those over 18. The danger with such words is that they provide, as some have put it, a get-out clause for local authorities in denying a young person the particular support services that they need—for example, special support on transport or something of that kind.

I wish to say a brief word about specialist colleges—the group of colleges, residential and non-residential, which provides specialist services for people with specific disabilities, such as the deaf and the blind. They are often centres of excellence in dealing with disabilities which require high levels of support. They are pleased to see Clause 41, which places responsibility on the Secretary of State to draw up a list of accredited independent and specialist providers that young people and their parents can choose to access. Can the Minister provide any details about when this list will be drawn up; what criteria will be used in selecting who is on it; and whether there will be any appeal procedures for those institutions that do not appear on the list but feel that they should?

Finally, I am not clear why higher education has been excluded from these proposals. If the education, health and care plans are to apply to all those studying in further education up to the age of 25, why do they not apply to students in higher education? There would be many benefits if these plans continued through university, including avoiding the need for further reassessment and assuring everyone that co-ordinated support continues for young people even when they move away from home. It is entirely logical for universities to be included within the same framework.