SEND Provision: Autism and ADHD

Catherine McKinnell Excerpts

Thursday 12th December 2024 Commons Chamber

[The Minister for School Standards (Catherine McKinnell)]

The hon. Member for South Cambridgeshire (Pippa Heylings) ended with the words of Desmond Tutu, and I could not agree more. I congratulate her on securing this debate on an incredibly important subject, and I congratulate hon. Members on their valuable contributions to it. I know that, as a former teacher, she is really aware of the critical role that education plays in breaking down barriers to opportunity, and how vital it is that we get our education and health services right to support the most vulnerable in our society. She described incredibly eloquently and powerfully the difference that good, inclusive education provision can make, and the significant challenges in providing it. She also mentioned the challenges that many children face at transition points, which can undermine some of the incredible work that teachers are performing up and down the country, as my hon. Friend the Member for Leeds South West and Morley (Mr Sewards) rightly pointed out.

Like others present, the hon. Member for South Cambridgeshire will have been inundated with letters and emails from concerned families in her constituency. I am sure she has been helping them to navigate the incredibly challenging special educational needs and disabilities system. So many of us are faced with this issue, which is why we need to reform the system. It is a priority for the Government. We want all children, regardless of where they are in the country, to receive the right support to succeed in their education and lead happy, healthy and productive lives. In far too many cases, we have simply lost the confidence of families that children with special educational needs and disabilities will be supported, because they are being failed by every measure.

Despite high needs funding for children and young people with very complex special educational needs and disabilities rising to higher and higher levels, the system is simply not delivering the outcomes that those children deserve, so we desperately need to reform the system. Our message to families is that we are committed to improving the SEND system and regaining their confidence.

[Iqbal Mohamed (Dewsbury and Batley) (Ind)]

I completely agree with the Minister’s comments. Part of ensuring that we provide the correct support to children is ensuring that the education, health and care plan assessment process is effective. I was told by a charity worker in my constituency of Dewsbury and Batley that 95% of appeals in Kirklees against a conclusion that SEND support is not needed are successful. Does she agree that this is a terrible waste of council resources, and that EHCP assessments must be done properly and got right the first time, so that children can be given support as soon as possible?

[Catherine McKinnell]

I absolutely recognise the challenge the hon. Gentleman has outlined, but it very much speaks to the point I was making, which is that we have published independently commissioned insights that suggest that if the education system as a whole was extensively improved, and if we had much better early intervention, which the hon. Member for South Cambridgeshire rightly referred to, and better resourcing within mainstream schools, that could lead to tens of thousands more children and young people having their needs met without an education, health and care plan. Their needs would be met within a mainstream system and with their peers, without needing a specialist placement. Clearly, we need specialist places for children with the most complex needs, but to ensure we have those places, we need to improve inclusivity and expertise within mainstream schools, while ensuring that those special schools and places can cater to children with the most complex needs.

I come back to the hon. Lady’s point about transition points for young people and how important it is for the whole system to be reformed. It is not good enough to reform just part of it, and for that great work to then be undone when a child or young person moves on to a new educational setting that does not provide the right support and environment for them. My point is that this situation is huge and complex. There is not a magic wand, and there is no overnight quick fix, but we are determined to change it, and we cannot do it alone. We need to work in partnership to achieve this.

[Alison Bennett]

I thank the Minister for her response. So much could be said about special educational needs across the country and in my constituency of Mid Sussex. The Minister mentioned how we all as Members of this place are undoubtedly trying our best to help families navigate the special educational needs system. I am sorry to say that when families come to me and I ask, “How can I help you?”, they say, “We don’t think you can help us. We just want you to witness and listen to what we are saying,” because the system is so broken. I met the family of Annabel in Mid Sussex. She has been out of school for several years, has been sectioned and has had multiple suicide attempts because her autism was not being managed in the schooling system. Her family just wanted me to bear witness to them, and I am so sorry that there is not more that we as parliamentarians can do.

[Catherine McKinnell]

The hon. Lady has borne witness today to that family and young person facing that challenge. It is vital that we work together with parents, schools, councils, the health sector and expert staff, who we know go above and beyond to support children within education settings to achieve the changes that are clearly desperately needed.

The hon. Member for South Cambridgeshire specifically focused the debate on support for autistic children and young people and those with ADHD. She will know from the work she has undertaken that we are seeing significant increases in the numbers of children and young people identified as autistic or with ADHD, and that is something we share in common with other countries around the world. We know families are facing significant challenges and that support needs to be in place, as she outlined, to ensure that those children can thrive in school.

We absolutely recognise the long waiting times across the NHS for autism and ADHD assessments, and we are working to address them. As the hon. Lady identified, we need to ensure that mainstream schools and colleges can identify those needs and put support in place early, because the earlier a child gets the support and right environment in which to learn, the more chance that they will thrive and that some of the challenges they face will be mitigated.

Ensuring that we have knowledgeable professionals in our schools and colleges is a key part of this. All teachers are teachers of pupils with special educational needs and disabilities, but we need to make sure those teachers have the skills and support to help all pupils succeed. As such, we are implementing a range of teacher training reforms that begin with initial teacher training and continue through early career teaching to middle and senior leadership.

We have a universal SEND services contract, which provides SEND-specific courses and professional development for school and college staff. Through that contract, the Autism Education Trust offers a range of training and support for staff on how to support autistic children and young people. The contract began in May 2022, and over 200,000 professionals have received training from the Autism Education Trust and training partners. On 1 September 2024, this Government introduced a new mandatory leadership-level national professional qualification for SENCOs. We are making the changes, but it will take time for them to work through.

Our partnerships for inclusion of neurodiversity in schools programme is also running in around 10% of schools, which is approximately 1,600 mainstream primary school settings. It is deploying specialists from both the health and education workforces and building better teaching and staff capacity to identify the needs of neurodivergent children. It provides opportunities to enhance support and improve outcomes for all children, taking a whole-school approach. It is a cross-Government programme backed by £13 million of investment, and it is a collaboration between the Department of Health and Social Care, the Department for Education and NHS England.

Additionally, we have just established a neurodivergence task and finish group, bringing together a group of experts from various backgrounds to help us understand how to improve inclusivity in mainstream schools in a way that works for neurodivergent children and young people. We know that listening to children and young people and their families and understanding their experiences is a really important part of this work. That group met for the first time this week, and I look forward to seeing their recommendations on the best way that we can support these children’s needs. This is happening alongside our expert advisory group on inclusion and the work being done by Dame Christine Lenehan, our new strategic adviser on SEND. We are looking at all of these issues strategically across Government, as we urgently need to turn this situation around.

I could go into the details of high needs funding, but I am very conscious of time. I appreciate the concerns that have been raised about the national funding formula. We prioritised speed over change this year—we needed to get the formula processed and out to schools and educational institutions—but we will obviously keep it under review to make sure the money is being spent in the most effective way to deliver the best outcomes for children. We have also allocated £740 million for high needs capital funding to support mainstream schools to adapt, if needed, to create more inclusive mainstream settings.

I thank the hon. Member for South Cambridgeshire again for bringing this matter forward. Ensuring that effective support is in place for young people is absolutely a priority of this Government. We know the hardship that far too many families have faced, and my final word of thanks goes to all those working in the interests of our children in our health, education and care systems. We will deliver the best for our children and young people, and I am confident that together we can achieve that.

Question put and agreed to.