Children and Families Bill

Baroness Sharp of Guildford Excerpts

Monday 28th October 2013 Grand Committee

Moved by

[Baroness Sharp of Guildford]

86: Clause 25, page 20, line 36, at end insert—
“( ) In exercising its functions under this Part, a local authority must—
(a) facilitate co-operation between local authorities, schools, other educational providers and providers of health care and social care;(b) ensure that schools, other educational providers and providers of health care and social care have sufficient resources including financial resources, to meet and carry out their responsibilities under this Part;(c) develop strategies to ensure the identification and support of persons, who may be described as lead professionals or key workers who may come from local authorities, schools, other educational providers and providers of health care and social care, and who shall take a lead role in the integration of services.”

[Baroness Sharp of Guildford (LD)]

My Lords, Clause 25 is about promoting integration. My amendment is about effecting that integration and,

“co-operation between local authorities, schools, other educational providers and providers of health care and social care”,

but also ensuring that there are sufficient resources for that integration to take place. It is a probing amendment intended to explore issues relating to multiagency working and the local offer. Integration of services, the alignment of assessment processes and co-operation among groups of professionals works only if those same professionals, especially at the early stages of such integration, have time to get together to talk things through.

The pathfinders, which were evaluated in the June document that we have all seen, suggested that attendance by the professionals involved—the teachers, healthcare and social work professionals—was highly variable, many of them pleading that their loads were so great that they had no time to attend the meetings required. However, the reforms will not work unless a realistic approach is taken to recognise those time constraints on the professionals involved, deliberately programming in time for them to build the relationships required. Of course, that means more resources, especially in the early phases of the development of the programme—not an easy prescription at a time when budget cuts are impinging so strongly on local authorities.

The pathfinder evidence also highlights the need to develop a targeted learning and development programme for school lead professionals and/or other key workers. If the unspoken assumption is that all the new expectations will be possible because they can be discharged by school special educational needs co-ordinators, Members of Parliament need to visit SENCOs in their constituencies to ask them about their already unrealistic workloads. It is likely that far fewer teachers will opt to take on the additional responsibilities of being SENCOs if the new reforms are implemented without sufficient resources being allocated.

The question of which agency should take on the role of key workers and lead professionals needs much further explanation. The existing DfE advice about when schools should or should not be the lead professionals is very inadequate. It does not guide schools in how to decide whether they are the most appropriate agency to take on the lead. Teachers report that schools are often inappropriately named as being lead professionals because other agencies cite budget cuts as precluding them from taking the lead. Those nuances currently seem to be ignored in the Bill but could cause a considerable amount of trouble. I beg to move.

[Baroness Jones of Whitchurch]

My Lords, we have two amendments in this group, Amendments 88 and 90B, so I shall speak to them. They would widen the scope of joint commissioning to include all aspects of support that children and young people might need by extending the definition of EHC provision and ensuring that children without EHC plans would also be included in the arrangements. I should add at this point that we support the amendments tabled by the noble Baroness, Lady Sharp, and the noble Lord, Lord Ramsbotham, which would in their own way go further to strengthen the joint commissioning arrangements. I very much agree with the points made by the noble Baroness, Lady Sharp, about resources.

However, before I go on to the substance of our amendments, I should like to ask the Minister about the wording of the entire clause. I should be grateful if she could put on record exactly what the clause means and what it would require local authorities and health bodies to do. I say this because the clause does not seem to be about requiring local authorities to secure services through commissioning; rather, it appears to require them to set up the apparatus through which decisions about commissioning will be taken. Obviously, that is a very great difference. It says that a local authority and partner bodies must make arrangements; it does not say that they must jointly secure provision. It does not even say that they must secure the provision that they have agreed is needed. This is especially important with regard to health, where other legislation can be used to absolve them from improving legislation on the grounds of, for example, cost. So far as I can see, there is no mechanism for anyone to challenge such decisions.

Therefore, the danger is that Clause 26 as it stands simply builds a procedural structure that really does not have any teeth. Furthermore, I cannot see any leverage by which the partner bodies will be accountable for what they decide to commission. We have not tabled any amendments on these points as it would have meant a substantial rewriting of the whole clause, but I would be very grateful if the Minister could address the point about what is intended by the wording and how partner bodies will be held accountable.

I turn to our Amendments 88 and 90B. Our concern is that the needs of families, including those where the child does not have an EHC plan, are met as completely as possible. It is important that the kind of provision subject to joint commissioning is not just the kind that goes directly to the child or young person relating to either special educational provision, healthcare provision or social care provision, but includes support for families to enable them better to support the child and their siblings. Supporting a child with SEN or disabilities can be incredibly stressful for families, and it is important that we assist and support parents and families with the tools to understand and support their child’s special educational needs or disability.

In the Commons, the Minister said that there was nothing precluding joint commissioning arrangements from covering other services for children and young people with or without SEN, and that support for families needing social care services was provided for under Section 17 of the Children Act 2004. He added that the duty in Clause 26 relates to joint commissioning arrangements for children and young people with SEN, and where the services are needed to support the child’s family as part of that package, that might be included in the arrangements.

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[Baroness Sharp of Guildford]

I thank my noble friend for her answer. I do not think that any of us who have spoken take issue with the fact that the Bill as a whole aims to improve the integration of arrangements. There is scepticism because we have seen several Bills where that hope has been there. Perhaps this Bill, in its way, is a stronger one. Clause 26(4) states:

“Joint commissioning arrangements about securing education, health and care provision must in particular include arrangements for … securing”,

EHCs. The Bill is quite explicit in making clear that integration should take place.