Speech, Language and Communication Education

Edward Timpson Excerpts

Wednesday 19th June 2013 Westminster Hall

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

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Dobbin, for the remaining 35 minutes of this debate. I hope that my time in office will be longer than that, so I can reach the end of the debate still in post.

I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for South Swindon (Mr Buckland) on securing this important and still timely debate—it follows Report of the Children and Families Bill last week—which has been well attended by Members on both sides the House. I know that he speaks from a voluminous amount of personal experience, as he does valuable work with children and young people with special educational needs and their families in his constituency.

As my hon. Friend rightly reminded us, he is also the vice-chair of the all-party group on speech and language difficulties. He has been championing the cause not just through that group but through the work that he has done on the Bill. As a member of the Committee that considered the SEN provisions in the Bill, he helped to shine a bright light on many of the key issues by tabling amendments and making wise and measured contributions to the discussions. I thank him again for his engagement. I also thank the hon. Member for Washington and Sunderland West (Mrs Hodgson), who has been another constructive participant in those debates.

I will try to cover as many of the points raised as possible. In the usual way, I will be happy to write to hon. Members to provide full answers if any points remain outstanding. I will deal at the outset with the specific points raised. The points made by my right hon. Friend the Member for Arundel and South Downs (Nick Herbert) on behalf of his constituents exemplify why it is necessary for us to push through these important reforms, so that parents in his constituency and across the country do not face the battles that form the downside of their experience in trying to access special educational provision for their children. Those problems prevent them from feeling that the system is working with them rather than against them, which happens on too many occasions.

The hon. Member for Washington and Sunderland West raised the importance of the local offer in trying to drive improvements on the ground. The local offer will set out in one place information about all the services that the local authority expects to be available in the local area and beyond for local children and young people with special educational needs and their parents. We have been clear in the indicative regulations that it must cover support for all children and young people with SEN, not just those with education, health and care plans. That could include provision from small specialist services providing outreach support to schools, such as those offering support to children using alternative and augmentative communication, as well as the provision normally available in mainstream settings and on offer in special schools and specialist colleges, including those in the non-maintained and independent sectors.

The local offer will also let parents know how to access services, what support is available to enable them to do so and what to do if they are unhappy with the support on offer. My approach is to make that engagement as clear and simple as possible for parents to access, so that they do not have to navigate through what I have described in the past as a labyrinthine array of different organisations and processes. We must have a single, easy entry into ensuring that those services are properly provided.

Regulations and a new SEN code of practice will set out a common framework for the local offer, but the key to the success of the local offer in each area will be the transparency of information and the involvement of local parents, children and young people in developing and reviewing it. That will help to ensure that it is responsive to local needs. Arguments have been made for stipulating minimum standards for the local offer. I believe that that would weaken local accountability and lead to a race to the bottom, as my hon. Friend the Member for South Swindon said in Committee.

We made an indicative draft of the code of practice available to the Committee to aid consideration of the SEN provisions in the Bill, and we are revising the guidance in the draft to take account of the points raised in Committee and the wider discussions that we are having and continue to have with others. To that end, I had a productive meeting recently with the Communication Trust, another key interest in the speech, language and communication sector. I also had the privilege, only last week, of visiting Springfield special school in my constituency, which makes excellent provision for children’s speech, language and communication needs, particularly for those who need alternative and augmented communication. If I have time, I will explain a little more about how that experience has enriched my understanding of this important area. My officials will shortly meet the Communication Trust and many of its constituent groups—I believe it is made up of 47 such groups—to discuss the code of practice. That will offer the opportunity to consider the guidance on the local offer and the issues raised this morning.

Important points were raised about the need to ensure that we identify and provide for children’s speech, language and communication needs as quickly and as early as possible. My right hon. Friend the Member for Arundel and South Downs and my hon. Friends the Members for South Swindon, for Mid Dorset and North Poole (Annette Brooke) and for Romsey and Southampton North (Caroline Nokes) all made that point.

Age two is an important time for children and their parents because it is when problems with language development and behaviour become readily identifiable and when intervention may be more effective than for an older child. That can make a real difference to a child’s future. The early years progress check that we introduced at age two and our work with the Department of Health to develop an integrated health and development review at age two to two and a half will make a real difference. Developmental delays, including in speech and language, will form part of that review and the training of clinicians will include assessing speech and language needs.

As my hon. Friend the Member for South Swindon said, by 2015, we will recruit and train an extra 4,200 health visitors to identify disability and special educational needs, to provide advice and support and to suggest activities to enhance language development and communication skills, including referral for speech and language therapy when appropriate. We have also commissioned the Early Language Consortium to deliver a £1.4 million three-year early language training programme to train practitioners to identify language development problems and to work with children and families. We aim to train nearly 13,000 professionals and to reach 95,000 families through that programme.

Ofsted evidence points to over-identification of SEN. The better communication research programme was funded by the Department for Education and arose from a recommendation by the Bercow review. We are continuing to take forward many of the key recommendations, including our work with the Communication Trust, our grants and contracts with the trust, to help to disseminate much of the good practice that came out of that research programme and to ensure that all that is brought together in one place, with the involvement of the royal colleges, and used effectively and pragmatically where we know it can make a difference on the ground.

That research also shows that some groups, such as those with speech, language and communication needs, are under-identified. We plan to replace the present system of School Action and School Action Plus in schools with new guidance to help schools to ensure that they identify children with SEN more accurately and put the right support in place as quickly as possible. The new SEN code of practice will include clear expectations for schools on the processes for identifying and assessing pupils, setting objectives for them, reviewing progress and securing further support. That will not change the legislative duties on schools to use their best endeavours to secure special educational provision, to have an SEN co-ordinator, to notify parents of such provision and to publish information on how they are implementing their policy on SEN and disability. Those are all set out in the Children and Families Bill.

The local offer presents clear opportunities for local authorities and schools to reflect approaches with good evidence of positive impact. I CAN’s programme, “A Chance to Talk”, which is supported by funding from my Department, is one example. It provides a comprehensive approach to children’s speech and language development across clusters of schools and through the involvement of NHS speech and language therapists. It incorporates a joint commissioning approach to ensure that children with the most complex needs receive specialist help at school. That is very much the model that my hon. Friend the Member for South Swindon talked about and it has flourished in his constituency. It provides flexibility in health and education, breaks down many of the barriers that my right hon. Friend the Member for Arundel and South Downs spoke about in relation to his constituency, and starts to bring about the culture change that we need to see on the ground.

Teachers tell us that the quality of their training is increasing, and many hon. Members have spoken about the importance of training the work force. Through the school direct programme, we are giving schools greater control over how they recruit and train teachers to meet the needs of their pupils. For example, ARK school is working with Canterbury Christ Church university to train 54 teachers through school direct. The programme includes intensive training during the first three years of a new teacher’s career, with additional training in inclusion behaviour and the teaching of reading and writing. They have a clear focus on SEN and equipping teaching to meet the range of pupils’ needs.

I am aware that the practical tools for schools developed by the better communication research programme, including those for developing communication supporting classrooms, are being widely disseminated by the Communication Trust as part of its work with the Department and elsewhere. The Department is also supporting the development of teachers’ skills in meeting SEN in other ways. A national scholarship fund for teachers has helped 600 teachers to obtain a qualification related to SEN, and there have been specialist resources for initial teacher training and new advanced level online modules for serving teachers, including on dyslexia, autism and speech and language skills. Funding has been provided for new SENCOs to complete the master’s-level national award for SEN co-ordination, with 10,119 between 2009 and 2012 and a further 800 in 2013-14.

Additional training for established SENCOs has been offered through NASEN, formerly the National Association for Special Educational Needs, to 5,000 teachers to date and there has been funding for several sector-specialist organisations, including the Communication Trust, to support the implementation of SEN reforms and to provide information to schools and teachers. The Institute of Education was awarded a grant in 2013-14 to explore the development of a scalable pilot to increase knowledge and skills in SEN within initial teacher training for trainees who wish to study this area in greater depth as part of their programme.

There has been a strong effort in initial teacher training and the current work force to develop skills and expertise in special educational needs, so that the ambitions set out in the Green Paper are reflected in the draft code of practice, which states that all teachers should be special educational needs teachers. That is becoming a reality following the work that I have mentioned.

A key change to the Bill, which several hon. Members have mentioned today and in Committee, is the introduction of a specific duty requiring those responsible for commissioning health provision to secure the health care provision in education, health and care plans. That significant change has been acknowledged and widely welcomed. The new duty builds on the joint commissioning duty in the Bill which requires local authorities and clinical commissioning groups, as well as NHS England when appropriate for national commissioning, to assess the needs of the local population of children and young people with SEN, and to plan and commission services to meet those needs. Joint commissioning arrangements must include those for securing education, health and care needs assessments, and the education, health and care provision specified in education, health and care plans. The new health duty requires health commissioners to ensure that the health care elements of those plans are provided for each individual. That provides direct clarity to parents that the support their child needs will be provided.

My hon. Friend the Member for South Swindon raised particular concerns in Committee, on Report and again today about clause 21 of the Bill and about when health provision is to be regarded as special educational provision. My right hon. Friend the Member for Arundel and South Downs also made that point. Clause 21(5) states:

“Health care provision or social care provision which is made wholly or mainly for the purposes of the education or training of a child or young person is to be treated as special educational provision”.

That was included to fulfil an undertaking I gave during pre-legislative scrutiny that we would maintain existing protections, including case law, and preserve the current position where there is no duty to secure the health provision in plans.

Under the broader, integrated assessments and plans in the Bill, decisions will be based on special educational, health and care provision. Without clause 21(5), it may be difficult for a tribunal to say that, although speech and language therapy is health care provision made by health care providers, it is in fact special educational provision. The clause also enables appeals to the tribunal in respect of health provision when it is defined as special educational provision, as now. However, as I said on Report—I am happy to reiterate it for the purposes of this debate—we want to get things right, so that the position is clear for parents and for young people and children with a special educational need. I am content to continue listening to the views expressed in this House and in the other place to ensure that that is the case.

[Mr Buckland]

I applaud the Minister for his efforts, but will he look again at the Bromley case that I referred to on Report? Although I accept that it was in the context of the old system of statements of special educational need, there, we had a very clear exposition from Lord Justice Stephen Sedley, as he then was, of what is necessary for the purposes of provision. As for my wording, I agree that just removing “wholly or mainly” may not be the right approach, but we all need to strive together to get the wording absolutely right, so that we avoid the nice legal arguments that the Minister and I might enjoy academically, but which are no good to families.

[Mr Timpson]

As ever, my hon. Friend makes an excellent point, which reminds us lawyers that sometimes we need to look beyond the boundaries of a legal document and reflect more on what it seeks to achieve, as a way of ensuring that it does what we intend it to. I will look carefully at the Bromley case that he mentioned, not only in context, but as a demonstration of where we need to think through the implications of the clause as drafted to ensure that some of those eventualities do not still pertain in the new environment and in the reformed system that we all want to see work. I am happy to do that, and I have clearly indicated my intent to continue thinking carefully about how that aspect of the Bill will fulfil all those objectives.

I completely agree with my hon. Friend and with the hon. Member for Washington and Sunderland West that young offenders, including those with special educational needs, need to receive the right support and access to education, both when in custody and when they return to their communities. Clause 69 is necessary because it prevents our legislation from coming into conflict with existing comprehensive statutory provisions governing how education support is delivered in custody, as set out in the Apprenticeships, Skills, Children and Learning Act 2009, which I am sure the hon. Lady remembers well.

Duties placed on local authorities by that legislation are fulfilled through contracts held by the Education Funding Agency that are funded by the Ministry of Justice. As hon. Members will know, the MOJ is clear that the current system is not working, which is why it recently consulted on transformational reforms to how education and support in youth custody should be delivered in future. I have ensured that the education element for children, including those with SEN, in the care system and elsewhere, is being properly considered as part of the review. That provides an important opportunity to be absolutely clear about what role the time that a young person spends in custody plays, both as a form of punishment and in rehabilitation, so that when they come out of custody, they have every prospect of moving on in a positive direction. We have done that elsewhere in the prison estate. There are some good examples, but we can do much better, which is why I have given a commitment to my hon. Friend the Member for South Swindon that we want to make progress, both in my Department and across Government, as the Bill moves on and as other work is done by the Ministry of Justice on the consultation that is taking place.

[Mr Buckland]

I know that the Minister was a family practitioner, but does he agree, perhaps from his experience dealing with criminal cases, that, very often, crimes of violence are precipitated by communications misunderstandings and young people resorting to using their fists—or worse—instead of being able to communicate with each other to resolve any differences?

[Mr Timpson]

My hon. Friend is absolutely right. He will know—as do I, from my family’s experience of fostering many children—that some manifestations of the inability to communicate result in outbursts of anger. I have spoken before, on one occasion, about when someone who appeared to be, on the surface, a quiet, unassuming young man ended up smashing every single pane in my Dad’s greenhouse, because he did not know how else to communicate his anger, frustration and worry about what had happened to him in the past. I am very alive to that fact, which is why I am determined that we make progress in that important area.

I agree with my hon. Friend the Member for Blackpool North and Cleveleys (Paul Maynard)—I am looking forward to coming to his working group later today on speech, language and communication needs—on the importance of ensuring that children and young people who need specialised communication aids have access to them. I know that he has raised that vociferously on a number of occasions, including in Prime Minister’s questions, in which the Prime Minister was clear that he wanted to help bring about the important changes that my hon. Friend wants.

My hon. Friend made the point about whether the interest in Government in the issue lies in health or education. The best answer I can give is that it is in both, which is why, in both those Departments, there is a strong interest from Ministers, who work not only individually, but collectively. I have met the Minister of State, Department of Health, who has responsibility for care, on a number of occasions to discuss that and other matters that transcend the Children and Families Bill, to ensure that we are moving in the right direction and in a way that will bring about the best results.

For lower-level alternative and augmentative communication needs, it will be up to health commissioners and their local authority partners to work together—we should lead by example by doing that in national Government—to ensure that the right services are in place locally to meet the needs of the population, and to reflect those services in the local offer. Highly specialist services needed by only a very small number of children will be commissioned centrally by NHS England, as my hon. Friend will know.

Prior to 1 April this year, there was no national commissioning of AAC services. There was no standard or nationally consistent definition of the services that were the commissioning and funding responsibility of the NHS. As a result, there was variation in organisations and in the commissioning and funding of specialised AAC services, and inequitable access to such services. A key priority must be to ensure that commissioning arrangements for specialised services are placed on a much more robust and equitable footing across England. That is currently being undertaken by NHS England’s area teams.

Work is under way to establish the required baseline for AAC services. Area teams are working with colleagues in clinical commissioning groups to identify the value of contracts for communication aids. My hon. Friend the Member for South Swindon mentioned the work of the former communication champion, Jean Gross, whose 2010 report suggested that a national budget of £14 million was required for 2012 to 2014 to bring the required baseline into effect. Working with experts on its AAC sub-group, NHS England will be looking at the report’s assumptions and other available data. We need to be clear that the progress on AAC has to be fulfilled to a degree that ensures the greatest level of equitable access that we can achieve. The development of the national commissioning of those services provides an opportunity to have much more consistency. I hope that that will be an important step forward.

One reason why I am pleased to support my hon. Friend the Member for Blackpool North and Cleveleys in trying to improve the situation is that I saw for myself, on my visit to Springfield school in Crewe, some of the incredible aids that are now available. Those are quickly coming on stream all the time. I was given a number of demonstrations involving buttons and click mouses, and I was also told about gaze technology—I confess that I cannot remember the exact phraseology, but that is the term that I have decided to use—in which the length of time a person keeps their eyes fixed on the screen determines their command to the device. That is an astonishing way of providing anyone, whatever their level of communication, with an opportunity to communicate.

As the technology advances, some of the costs of the technology, certainly in the early stages, prove quite significant, so we need to think carefully about how we ensure, as my hon. Friend rightly said, that the equipment can still benefit the individual as they move on from compulsory education and, we hope, make the transition to a fulfilling adult life.

[Mrs Hodgson]

There was recently a reception, which some hon. Members may have gone to, about the gaming industry. One company there, SpecialEffect, is developing some of this eye-movement technology. It works in the gaming industry, but also on the educational opportunities provided by that technology. A lot of people may think that gaming is not necessary, but this is a very important move, with regard to cohesion, and young people feeling included in society, and able to play games and take part in other online activities in the same way that their peers can. The cost of the technology could be prohibitive, so I am pleased that the Minister is aware of it and has availed himself of it. I hope that we can ensure that where these technologies can help children with their education and the social aspects of their life, they will not be deemed too prohibitively expensive all the time.

[Mr Timpson]

The hon. Lady is a great advocate of the role that information technology can play in the lives of many children and young people with special educational needs. That even led to her persuading me, in Committee, to include elements relating to IT in the code of practice. This is another example of where we have the chance to widen the opportunities for many young people with speech, language and communication needs who, not many years ago, would not have had any of that at their disposal. Yes, there will be costs that must be taken into account, but with some of the new commissioning arrangements that are coming on board, including the joint commissioning in the Bill, and with personal budgets, there is a raft of ways in which, with the right support, many families can start to consider that as a reality, rather than a pipe dream. It is incumbent on all of us to think carefully about how we can help them to achieve exactly that.

I want to touch on an important issue that my hon. Friends the Members for Mid Dorset and North Poole, and for South Swindon, touched on—the Ofqual consultation proposal not to assess formally speaking and listening skills at GCSE. Clearly, pupils need speaking skills for their future progression, and employers value good communication skills and want them to be taught. The subject content of the new English language GCSE will strengthen the requirement to teach pupils how to become more confident in using spoken language in formal settings. The key point is how speaking skills are taught. Often, we dwell on the subject matter, rather than how that will be put across and absorbed by each individual child in such a way that it will endure. We do not want it to be just an exercise in process.

Improvements to the new national curriculum key stage 2 and 3 programmes of study for English will result in students being better prepared for the start of their GCSE courses. We do not want to undermine the robust standard of this subject by including assessments that cannot be externally validated, and that is reflected in Ofqual’s proposals. We have consulted organisations representing students with special educational needs as part of the equality analysis that we published in March. Overall, we believe that the benefit to all students will be positive. Students will follow more robust and challenging GCSE courses that will have real value for their future progression to further education and employment. Those with special educational needs can, through the Equality Act 2010, be supported in their exams through reasonable adjustments, such as extra time or supervised rest breaks. Ofqual, as the independent regulator, will monitor access arrangements and reasonable adjustments as the reformed GCSEs are introduced.

The consultation is still open. I know that the Communication Trust and others have submitted their own reflections on the proposals, and I have no doubt that Ofqual will take those reflections extremely seriously. We shall have to wait for the outcome of the consultation to see what steps are to be taken next, but it is important that Members of the House have the opportunity, both through the consultation and through the debate today, to make their feelings known, so that every angle is properly considered when understanding the ramifications of any changes on which Ofqual is consulting.

The changes that we are making in relation to special educational needs through the Children and Families Bill and through the 20 pathfinders across 31 local authorities are a key feature of our determination to ensure that all vulnerable children, whatever their background, have the chance to reach their full potential, not just in their education but in their wider life socially, culturally and otherwise. It is encouraging that we have reached the halfway point of the Bill’s passage and there is strong consensus on much of what it is designed to achieve and how we are going about that.

We are not talking about a small cohort of children in our country. We are talking about a significant number of children, and as my hon. Friend the Member for South Swindon rightly pointed out on a number of occasions, we have a duty to ensure that they have every opportunity to reach their goals, academic or otherwise, that we would want for our own children. I know that as the Bill moves on, many Members here and in the other place will want to continue this dialogue, which has been extremely constructive to date, to ensure that we meet our responsibilities in Parliament to provide the best possible framework for the local agencies that are working so hard on the ground, in the public, private and voluntary sectors, to help to bring about these important changes. I am confident that we have set our stall out in a way that will drive reform and bring about the culture change that we all want and that, as a consequence, many children and families will feel that rather than the system working against them, it is much more on their side.

We are already starting to see, in some of the evaluation of the work that the pathfinders are doing, reports from parents who are starting to feel more included. They are being properly consulted. They are seeing changes in attitude, particularly in the health service, towards their involvement in not just the assessment process, but the delivery of services. The building blocks are starting to be put in place. Some of the relationships are starting to be recalibrated and are starting to mesh; my hon. Friend the Member for South Swindon said that was happening already in his constituency.

We still have a huge amount of work to do. We are under no illusions about the fact that it will be a monumental task for all of us to ensure that this is a lasting and fulfilling change for many families, but the signs are encouraging, and I look forward to working with hon. Members on both sides of the House to continue to do all that we can to ensure that these important reforms really do hit the mark.