Oral Answers to Questions

Bill Esterson Excerpts

Monday 21st March 2011 Commons Chamber

[Sarah Teather]

Transition is at the heart of what we are trying to achieve with the Green Paper, and the reason for setting out an education, health and care plan from nought to 25. The focus is much more on outcomes, specifically to try to deal with transition, so that we start planning for independent life at a much earlier stage. The Green Paper sets out the direction of travel, and we hope to get input from across Government. I encourage people with a specific interest in the subject to respond to the Green Paper and give us their views on whether it meets young people’s needs and whether we should do more.

[Bill Esterson (Sefton Central) (Lab)]

Is the Minister aware of the concern in local authorities about the impact of the cuts to councils on their ability to provide central advisory teams for SEN? Does she realise the impact that that has in dramatically reducing SEN provision when schools do not buy back into those services?

[Sarah Teather]

We recognise that local authorities throughout the country are having to make difficult decisions, just as the Government are. However, money is not always well spent at the moment. For example, much money is wasted on the adversarial system, with parents unnecessarily going through tribunals. There is often a real push to get expensive independent provision that can be a drain on local authorities’ resources when, if we could get some of the necessary health care delivered earlier, parents would not necessarily push to go all the way to the expense of independent provision. A lot more can be done to spend the money that we have better.