Special Educational Needs (Wirral)

Edward Timpson Excerpts

Wednesday 9th January 2013 Westminster Hall

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Education (Mr Edward Timpson)]

I congratulate the hon. Member for Wirral South (Alison McGovern) on securing this important debate. As a near neighbour, I thank her both for showing a profound interest in what is happening in her constituency with regard to the provision for children and young people with special educational needs and for discussing the issue more generally, as it affects the close to 1.62 million children who are designated as having special educational needs.

Before I say what the Government are doing to deal with current systemic difficulties, I should like to deal with the two points that the hon. Lady raised. Clearly, she has taken a keen interest in the situation at Lyndale special school and has spoken to parents who are caring for their children with profound difficulties and disabilities and coping with those things. I put on record my appreciation and praise for the dedication that they show as carers. Sometimes, it is easy to underestimate that role, but it is not something that they have to do on the odd day; they do it day to day, continuously. The short-break money that we have provided—about £800 million—is an important part of the package available to parents, such as those of children at the Lyndale school, to ensure that they get the support that they need, so that they can continue to provide the best possible care for their children.

It is not for the Government to interfere in the circumstances surrounding the school and the process that Wirral council is also grappling with. The school has other freedoms available to it and may want to consider applying to the Secretary of State for the freedom to change its status as a school through the academy process. On the evidence and expert advice about the periods of transition and what the right model is for certain children who require specialist provision in an educational environment, there is a wealth of research out there and differing views about whether such provision should be in the mainstream or in a specialist environment.

The hon. Lady requested support from the Department so that she and her constituents might be better informed about what works best. I can offer an arrangement for her to meet officials in my Department, particularly the professional SEN adviser, to discuss the matter in a little more detail, providing her with opportunities to explore it further and to provide some answers to questions asked by her and her constituents about how the best provision for the children can manifest itself in the type of environment that is available to them locally.

We are going through a period of funding reform, as the hon. Lady mentioned, but the funding arrangements for special schools will combine place funding with funding for each individual child, so there is still emphasis on the individual child in deciding the overall sum that would be available to meet the needs and support required for that child through education. That place funding protects schools, and funding for individual children ensures that resources are used to meet their needs. It is incumbent on local authorities to have a good dialogue with all schools, including the Lyndale special school, to ensure that the transition—we are in the realms of transition—from the current funding regime to the new one does not undermine the potential for the Lyndale special school to provide what the hon. Lady has said is an expert environment—I have no reason to think that that is incorrect—for some children with profound difficulties.

The hon. Lady mentioned parents’ struggles with the SEN system—that reflects the outcome of the consultation and Green Paper exercise that the Government have undertaken—particularly parents’ and children’s views being taken seriously, and being heavily involved in the initial assessment process and the delivery and implementation of what, at the moment, is called a statement but will be called an education, health and care plan.

The hon. Lady also mentioned points of transition, where children move from one part of their education to another, particularly at key stages, such as from primary to secondary and on to further education. At the moment, there is a separate system. A hallmark of the reforms that we want to introduce is that it will become a single system, with a single assessment process. Many parents, including those in the hon. Lady’s constituency, will welcome that.

The Government’s aim is that all children and young people with special educational needs or disabilities have the opportunity to reach their full potential in school and that they are supported to make a successful transition into adulthood, whether in employment, further or higher education, or training. With the current system not working well enough for parents or for children and young people with SEN, it is important that we address that. It has been more than 30 years since the last reform to the SEN system.

As the hon. Lady said, the system often works against the wishes of families, and although it is now much more child-centred, we must not forget that parents and carers form much of that child’s life and we must ensure that they also get the necessary support. Such support is often identified too late. Families are made to put up with a culture of low expectations about what their child can achieve at school, and that is illustrated by the huge gap in attainment at every key stage between children with SEN and their peers. That gap is persistent, and although there have been some notable improvements in recent years, especially with the assistance of the achievement for all model—the evidence-based model supported and funded by the Government that is now in more than 1,000 schools—the gap is still too great, and more needs to be done to bridge it.

In the Green Paper, “Support and aspiration: A new approach to Special Educational Needs and Disability”, published last year, a strong case was made for moving to a single system that goes not only from two to 19, but from nought to 25, because early and continued support is more likely to produce the outcomes that we want for children and young people who find themselves needing that extra support to achieve the educational attainment that we all know they can reach.

It is important not only that the system picks up and identifies as early as possible the support that is needed, but that that support is put in place as quickly as possible and in a way that is as integrated and co-ordinated as is achievable. One of the flaws in the current system is that it has been too fragmented. The hon. Lady pointed out that many parents and young people are assessed incessantly and that that assessment is duplicated; they have to repeat themselves again and again. We want a much more integrated approach in which education, health and social care work closely together. They will have a duty to co-operate and to commission their services jointly, to ensure that the delivery of those services is much more joined up and that parents do not have to grapple with a system that is incoherent and difficult to navigate.

We have drafted legislation that was published in September. We have just been through a process of pre-legislative scrutiny, which involved my having the pleasure of presenting myself in front of the Select Committee on Education to give evidence. That process culminated in the Education Committee’s report, which I encourage the hon. Lady to look at, and the response will shortly be provided to the Committee. In conjunction with that and to ensure that the measures are not only a legislative vehicle but make the changes on the ground that parents want to see, including in the Wirral, we have set up 20 pathfinders across 31 local authorities. That is not happening in the hon. Lady’s local authority and, indeed, not in mine, but it is close by in Wigan, Oldham, Manchester, Rochdale and Trafford, as well as elsewhere throughout the country.

The aim is to improve choice and control within the system for parents and young people to help to drive better outcomes. The findings from those programmes are informing not only the legislation, the code of practice and the regulations that will follow, but how we can improve practice on the ground. The pathfinders will be trailblazers and champions for innovative approaches, so that other local authorities nearby can adopt similar tactics to improve their offer to young people with SEN and disabilities.

To ensure that that process continues after the Bill has been through both Houses, we decided to extend the pathfinder programme for an additional 18 months, which will give us a richer wealth of experience to draw on to ensure that we get the legislation right, that it delivers on the ground and that there is no disconnect between what we do in Westminster and what actually happens in schools throughout the country.

We are developing a new system that will be built on a much stronger and more streamlined assessment process, which importantly, as the hon. Lady mentioned, includes parents, children and young people. We are even piloting the prospect of children themselves being able to appeal against a decision made by a local authority not to provide them with an education, health and care plan or not to adhere to a request for an assessment. That is quite an advance on the current system. We want to ensure that the assessment process is integrated and that it is a quality assessment. That will help to ensure that, right from the start, parents and children are confident that their support will reflect what they believe is necessary and that it is provided by professionals who are talking to and engaging with each other and delivering it collectively, rather than in individual silos, as happened too often in the past.

In Solihull, for example, the pathfinder has already made progress on improving the assessment process, which has been shortened from 26 weeks to 14 weeks. In Southampton, a single assessment process for the education, health and care plan is being developed and tested for children with high medical needs but no significant educational needs. We sometimes work on the premise that a child with special educational needs and disabilities can be categorised one way or the other, but there is a whole spectrum of children in that group. The hon. Lady mentioned the Lyndale school, which deals with children with particularly profound difficulties, and it should look at this good innovation as it starts to develop its own assessment and planning process for children in its area.

It is also important for those children who are not statemented at the moment and who would not necessarily require in future the support that an education, health and care plan delivers that the transparency and accountability of the services on offer to other children with special educational needs are clear to parents and that they know how to seek redress should they not receive the services that they require. That is why we are going to improve the local offer and make it transparent both in content and delivery. Parents will be involved in its formulation, and we are looking at how the monitoring will include parents to ensure that they are far more in control of the services being delivered locally.

The work does not stop there. So much more needs to be done to the system outside the legislative process. We have funded more than 10,000 SEN co-ordinators. We have increased the amount spent on further education around special educational needs and additional learning support. We have launched a £3 million trial of supported internships, so that children and young people with special educational needs who want to go on to further education have the necessary support to enable them to do so.

We have a packed programme to ensure that we move to a system that deals with some of the fundamental issues that the hon. Lady has raised, such as ensuring that parents have knowledge at their fingertips and are involved in the process of ensuring that their child receives the necessary support throughout their whole educational experience and before and after from nought to 25, so that they achieve the outcomes that we all want.

Clearly, issues have been raised that are specific to Wirral and the school in which the hon. Lady has taken a keen interest. In a spirit of being as co-operative and helpful as possible, I am sure that she will be delighted to take up my offer to come and meet officials and professionals in my Department who, if they cannot advise her on her specific point, may be able to point her in the direction of information to give her and her constituents the confidence that they are in a better position to understand and challenge the local authority on its approach.

Finally, the hon. Lady’s constituents may want to consider the fact that the new system will enable every parent and young person to name a school in their plan, which may help them to obtain the provision that they want for their children throughout their education and beyond.