Special Educational Needs: Isle of Wight

Bob Seely Excerpts

Tuesday 25th February 2020 Westminster Hall

[Bob Seely (Isle of Wight) (Con)]

I beg to move,

That this House has considered special educational needs on the Isle of Wight.

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Robertson, for what I think is the first time, and I am most grateful to the Minister and her team for being here. As she is aware, the purpose of Westminster Hall debates is often to raise issues that are of considerable importance in Members’ constituencies or to groups of their constituents. I have secured this debate in order to discuss the Isle of Wight’s needs in two areas that are important to many parents on the Island: special educational needs and disability, and education, health and care plans, which I know the Minister is familiar with and which she will become more familiar with in her new role. EHCPs outline the special educational needs a child has and the plan that a local authority has to put in place to support that child.

I will speak for probably no more than 10 minutes, just to outline some background and ask the Minister a series of questions. I am aware that she has not received a copy of my speech, for which I apologise—I do tend to write them at the last minute. I am not expecting specific verbal answers from her today, but it would be great to get written responses to some of the questions I raise, because as I say, they are important to my constituents and the children of the Isle of Wight.

Right from the outset, I want the Minister to be aware of the higher percentage of not only SEND provision but provision of ECHPs on the Island compared with the national average. On the Island, 4.4% of kids have an EHCP, compared with a national average of 3.1%, so our level is roughly a third higher. Some 12.7% of our school population has special educational needs or disabilities; the national average is 11.9%, so our level is nearly 1 percentage point higher.

Over the past decade, we on the Island have undergone quite substantial educational reforms, which were the right things to do but which have put education there under pressure. In November last year, Ofsted and the Care Quality Commission conducted a week-long joint inspection of the Isle of Wight to judge our effectiveness in implementing the disability and special educational needs reforms set out in the Children and Families Act 2014, with which I am sure the Minister is familiar. Overall, they were content with what they saw. In a letter to the Island’s authority, they wrote that

“Children and young people were getting an improved deal on the Isle of Wight”,

which is excellent to know. They also wrote that

“Leaders across education, health and care are committed to tackling the historically poor support that these children have received.”

It is highly regrettable that there has been historically poor support on the Island, which may be one reason for the high level of EHCPs we now have. I will come on to the potential reasons for that in a little bit. Our strengths were seen to be

“Strong early identification and support in early years…A strong early help offer…Joint working supporting early identification …Increasingly effective identifying and supporting CYP”—

that is, children and young people—

“who may have Autism Spectrum Disorder”,

and generally,

“Well informed EHC Plans”.

As I say, education on the Isle of Wight has generally undergone significant reform and improvement. To an extent, we went backwards to go forwards a few years ago, which was highly regrettable, but our Ofsted reports are steadily improving. There have been difficulties, but our partnership with Hampshire is a good one; we are now in that partnership voluntarily, working to improve standards. On that point, I thank the Island’s teachers for the excellent work they do in helping to raise standards, as well as kids and parents on the Island. I also recognise the excellent work done by our education officers Brian Pope and Steve Crocker, as well as by Councillor Paul Brading, who leads on education for the council at the political level.

The inspection found three areas that needed improvement. First, although leaders were committed to putting the needs of children at the heart of their work, that was not always effectively communicated. Secondly, children and parents were not always able to influence the support that they received. Although there are good examples of that process—which, as I am sure the Minister knows, is known as co-production—that experience has not been consistently good for all parents, which is clearly regrettable. Thirdly, although EHCPs have improved, the targets that they had were sometimes imprecise and older plans were not always kept up to date. Those issues, particularly the first and third, have meant that some parents lack confidence in the system.

One of the groups of people who come to see me at my surgeries on the Island the most consistently are parents—almost always mums—of children with special educational needs and disabilities or with an EHCP. During the last Parliament, I held a roundtable for parents of kids with either SEND or ECHPs to meet council and education officers. It was clear that one of the parents’ main issues was that the council and the authorities needed to communicate more and engage in more joint working with officers, schools and parents, so that parents could fully trust in the system. That trust was sometimes lacking, especially because we were going through so many other reforms and improvements that needed to take place at the time. In fact, the Island being in the top half of last year’s review is testament to the fact that we are improving. Despite the upheavals that have taken place in Island education, we were still able to produce significant, decent work on SEND and ECHPs under the 2014 Act. Our education authority has pledged to work harder at creating a co-producing strategy with parents, and to communicate better.

More generally, I welcome much of what this Government are doing, and congratulate the Minister on it. They are boosting higher needs funding by over £750 million, an increase of 12%, to ensure that children can reach their full potential. Over the past decade, the number of teaching assistants has increased by 50,000 to over a quarter of a million—the figure is now 264,000. The Government have pledged that from September 2020, a further £31.6 million will be allocated for additional educational psychologists, who clearly play an important role in identifying children who may have SEND issues and may need to have care plans. On the Island, there has been considerable delay in assessing children for autism spectrum disorder because of a lack of appropriate qualified people. I know that problem has now been sorted out, but at the time, it caused considerable distress.

Most importantly in the context of this debate, I understand that a review has been launched into the 2014 Act and how we support children with special educational needs. The review will consider how to boost outcomes and ensure that the right support is in place for children with those needs. I remind the Minister of my key point: we on the Island have a considerably higher proportion of children requiring EHCPs than the national average—4.4%, compared with 3.1%—and children covered by SEND make up 12.7% of our school population, or nearly 13%, as opposed to nearly 12% nationally. Because we are getting EHCPs to children quickly, the costs kick in more quickly than they would in other authorities where the plans take longer to come to fruition. In effect, our efficiency in producing plans results in additional cost.

There are some theories that potentially explain the higher level of plans on the Island. I have been talking consistently to education officers and some headteachers over the past few years, and it seems that the previous gaps in educational attainment caused by some historically lower standards may be one reason for the higher level of ECHPs now. I have questioned whether we have a more paternal attitude on the Island that means that we want to not statement, but identify kids with SEND or who may need education, health and care plans. In the last week, I have talked to headteachers, education officials and Councillor Paul Brading—in fact, we spoke last night—about whether there is a pushy parent factor, which could be an issue in some parts of the UK. They are all adamant that our standards for whether young people get EHCPs are consistent with the national average and that we on the Island are not statementing—or whatever phrase the Minister is comfortable with—children to a higher percentage because we have a lower threshold or hurdle than elsewhere. Our assessment standards are consistent and produce higher numbers of children needing an EHCP.

Either way, it is important to say that, because we have higher than average requirements for SEND and EHCPs, there is greater pressure on our school system and on our funding, both the funding we get for specialised care and general funding. As my education authority explains, if a child has an EHCP, the school funds approximately the first £6,000, then the local authority finds the money from the higher needs block. As I am sure the Minister can see, the more children and young people we have with plans, the greater the cost to overall budgets and the greater the pressure on schools that are already under pressure to produce better results because of historical failings in the past decade.

The critical point is that the more children we have with EHCPs and a SEND statement or diagnosis, the more costs our schools have to bear. That will put our budgets under severe strain, despite the increased funding that I am sure the Minister will mention and that I am delighted about. It will mean that, certainly from next year, a primary school will have £4,000 per pupil and a secondary school will have £5,000 per pupil. Almost every school on the Island will benefit from those increases, which is excellent. We want to level up everywhere, not just in the north, which means helping poorer areas and constituencies in the south-east and the south-west. Importantly, the constituency of the Minister’s Parliamentary Private Secretary, my hon. Friend the Member for North Cornwall (Scott Mann), is not dissimilar when it comes to those issues.

To come to the crux of what I want to ask the Minister, I have five questions. There is a rumour that the first £10,000 for EHCPs and SEND provision will have to be found from school budgets. Can she quash the idea that the commitment for the first £6,000 to be found by schools will go up to £10,000? Is she aware of the pressure that that would put schools with a higher commitment for EHCPs and SEND under everywhere in the UK, but especially in constituencies such as mine? The higher the number of EHCPs, the higher the pressure.

Does the Minister accept that the pressure on Island education resources is nearly 50% higher than on the mainland, because of the increased number of children with a education, health and care plan? Apart from general responses, what support can she offer to Island schools to cope with a case load that is significantly higher than the national average? If she is more comfortable writing to me on that, I would be delighted to receive a letter from her.

How will the review better support Island children and families? Can the Minister reassure me that the review will consider evidence from education authorities in places such as the Island, and from Members of Parliament who represent such constituencies?