Children and Families Bill

John Howell Excerpts

Monday 25th February 2013 Commons Chamber

[John Howell (Henley) (Con)]

I want to address a couple of points relating to the special educational needs reforms in the Bill. There is a lot of consensus on the matter on both sides of the House. Indeed, the debate has been so good that there has been a lot of consensus on the Bill anyway, and I am not going to disturb that consensus.

I start with a quotation from Barnardo’s:

“Barnardo’s is supportive of the Government’s intentions, which aim to support better joint working between agencies and introduce unified Education, Health and Care plans for children and young people.”

One of the key components of the Bill, therefore, is better joint working across a range of agencies. There is much to be welcomed in that, although I have some concerns—I have noted that other Members do, too. I should say en passant that giving children, young people and their parents care of the funds through personal budgets is an excellent way of proceeding and has to be right.

Everyone has acknowledged that the integration of education, health and care plans is widely approved, but I wish to raise a question about how it will work in practice. How will the role of health be captured and delivered in the process? That question was put to me by the head of Woodeaton Manor special school in my constituency, which I recently visited. She doubted that the joint education, health and care plans could be delivered without a statutory duty on health services. That was a great disappointment to her, because she was very much in favour of them and wanted to give them a good run. I understand that the constitution of the NHS and the way in which it operates mean that that has not yet been possible to achieve, but I encourage Ministers to continue their dialogue with their NHS colleagues to find a way of sorting this out. Unless they do that, there will be no certainty that the education, health and care plans can be delivered, and that will be an enormous shame.

I urge Ministers also to ensure that one person is appointed to look after a child’s interests. My experience is that when more than one agency is involved, the need for a person to look after the child often falls through the cracks and we end up with nobody looking after the child. In some cases the relevant person will clearly be the education sponsor, but that will not necessarily be true in other cases, particularly when we are dealing with those who are not in education, employment or training. It would be extremely useful to have a provision along those lines in the Bill.

The education, health and care plans replace statements. The accusation has been made that too many assessments are a bad thing and that they are time-consuming, and I agree with that, but the more fundamental point is that statements are a very blunt instrument that can be open to misuse. I pay tribute to the staff of Woodeaton Manor school for the fantastic work that they are undertaking there. When I visited, they were preparing with some children with difficult autistic conditions to take cakes to a cake stall at a local market. The head made the point that the concentration on statements leads to too many children being statemented as autistic. That not only inhibits the best use of resources but dilutes the focus on those who really need help. The misdiagnosis of SEN, or of the level of SEN, leads to the easy solution that everybody ends up with a statement or with SEN provision.

Autism is an important issue in both the south and north of my constituency, where there are two organisations. The problem always comes when the child leaves school. They come to a cliff edge at 16, or perhaps at 18 when provision is taken up to that age, when it is left to individual organisations such as Thomley Hall in my constituency to help shape that young person’s future. That is why I am particularly pleased that the Bill’s provisions extend to the age of 25 so that that cliff edge can be smoothed out. Will the Minister confirm that that will be the case for children with autism?

The new special educational needs code of practice will be important. It will give statutory guidance on the provisions in the Bill, and I hope that it will also set out how those who do not require education, health and care plans will be supported. Providing funding for that is important. Oxfordshire now has a good range of high-quality cost-effective local provision for young people aged 16 to 25 across special schools and colleges, but that is in stark contrast to many other areas. Although it has developed local provision that has significantly reduced expenditure on out-of-county placements, there still seems to be disagreement on how the SEN block grant should be treated and I urge Ministers to look at that. It is simply not acceptable that so many families struggle to get the help and support that their child needs to receive a first-class education. Every child has the right to fulfil their potential, and I believe this Bill will ensure that that happens.