Special Educational Needs and Disabilities (Suffolk)

Jim Shannon Excerpts

Tuesday 5th November 2019 Commons Chamber

[Sandy Martin (Ipswich) (Lab)]

May I, Mr Speaker, add my congratulations to those already given in respect of your elevation, both metaphorically and physically, to the speakership?

Suffolk has a greater than average number of special educational needs and disability assessment cases going to tribunal; poor communication between providers and with parents; a lack of specialist placements; an inadequate resource in the Norfolk and Suffolk NHS Foundation Trust, which is supposed to provide mental health services; insufficient respite services; a growing gap between the provision described in education, health and care plans and what is actually provided; an acute shortage of autistic spectrum disorder provision; and an overall lack of staff and funding to address these issues, either in mainstream education or in specialist provision.

Since the revisit from Ofsted in January this year, and its report in February, little seems to have been done to hold Suffolk to any action plan that might deal with the failings identified. There has been no increase in monitoring since the failed revisit and no appreciable changes in senior management. Mental health services—or the lack of them—continue to cause distress to young people and their parents, and young people are harming themselves or falling into greater mental health need while they wait for support that does not come.

[Jim Shannon (Strangford) (DUP)]

First, may I, too, publicly congratulate you, Mr Speaker, on your election as the Speaker of the House? It was a great pleasure to watch that.

The hon. Gentleman is absolutely right that this issue is critical, not only for him and his constituents but for me and mine, and the Minister has responsibility for it. The time allocated for direct contact time with educational psychologists is just 15 hours a year for pupils at one primary in Northern Ireland. For children dealing with anxiety and other social issues, that is simply not enough. Does the hon. Gentleman agree that the provision of support and early intervention in respect of social anxiety issues can positively impact lifelong mental health, and reduce the need for further intervention in high schools at a greater cost? In other words: do it now, do it early.

[Sandy Martin]

The hon. Gentleman is absolutely correct; he has put his finger right on the main point.

Two days ago, in response to the news that I had secured this debate, I received an email from a distressed parent. She says:

“My son has been out of school for 3 years in December. He was signed off by our consultant paediatrician as medically unfit for mainstream school. He has an Education & Health Care Plan. He has all the paperwork to state he has autism with a pathological demand avoidance profile but he cannot sit through the formal assessment as it runs for too long and he finds it too difficult to cope in the situation.

I have contacted the local authority so many times with regard to providing my son with an education; I have put in formal complaints and yet he still has no education.

I applied to the tribunal last December as the Local Authority insisted in his Education Health Care Plan that mainstream schooling was suitable for him, but they simultaneously refused to name a school he could go to.

The tribunal have made numerous orders ordering the Local Authority to name a school for my son but these have all been ignored.

We went to the tribunal last Tuesday, 29th October, at which the Judge told the Local Authority that they need to name a school on his education and health care plan and that the tribunal had to be adjourned until 13th December because of this, adding more of a delay to my son getting an education. He is now 12 years old.

My son is still without an education and we are in limbo.

My son deserves the correct education but he has been thoroughly let down by the education system. The strain of fighting the system tires you out but you still have to keep going. It should not be like this—every child has the right to an education. We keep being told that it is not the label that counts, but the child’s needs. Well we know our son needs an education but we cannot access any support for him to get that education because he doesn’t seem to have the right label.”

I had already secured this debate when that message was sent to me. The reason why I applied for the debate was that parent after parent has written to me, emailed me, met with me at my surgeries, and invited me to visit their child’s school or visit the school that their child would be going to if they had enough support in place, or the school that would be ideal for the child, but which has no more capacity.