Mental Health Support: Educational Settings
John Milne Excerpts(1 week, 5 days ago)
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John Milne (Horsham) (LD)
I thank the hon. Member for Redditch (Chris Bloore) for securing this important debate.
It is time to acknowledge that special educational needs and mental health provision in schools is one of the great crises that we face today, although I do appreciate that there is a lot of competition for that particular accolade.
Financial pressures have significantly impacted CAMHS funding in my constituency of Horsham. Despite a modest 0.6% fee uplift for Sussex, the sector has faced a mandated 15% funding reduction—approximately £1.6 million—and that is coupled with rising staff costs due to higher national insurance contributions and an increase in the national living wage.
Meanwhile, demand just keeps on going up. Since September 2020, Sussex CAMHS has experienced a substantial rise in referrals, attributed to the pandemic and the easing of lockdown restrictions. This surge has adversely affected waiting times for initial assessments and treatment. The crisis is even sharper at the local education authority funding level. My local authority, West Sussex, has a dedicated schools grant deficit scheduled to go past £130 million by April. It is allowed to keep this off the balance sheet for another year, but there is only so long that we can maintain the fantasy that this service can be afforded without major central Government intervention.
Most of all, the pain is being felt at the school level, and by the children and families who experience the many failings and gaps in service. I have been contacted by no fewer than five schools in the past fortnight alone regarding this issue. Typical of their message is this from Holbrook primary school governing board:
“Schools, trusts and local authorities are overwhelmed by the rising number of pupils who are seeking additional support and the ever-increasing costs of providing assistance. Urgent action is required now to help solve the crisis in SEND, so the future of our children is not blighted by a system that is not fit for purpose.”
Having visited many schools recently, I noted that teachers are verging on desperation. I noted too their love for the children they are looking after. They desperately want to help them, but they are in an impossible situation. There is, I am afraid to say, an element of physical danger in some cases. This is not the children’s fault; this is our fault.
Horsham schools are asking for health services to take on more of the strain, because they are at breaking point. Although mental health provision in schools has clear benefits, we must ensure that this provision does not fall on school budgets. Mental health support teams cover about 44% of schools in the UK, and come from NHS budgets, not school budgets. That should become 100% coverage.
The pressure on schools to cope with more and more SEN children, with little or no extra funding, is set to undo every gain we have made in educational standards over the past decades. I appreciate that the Government are taking at least some action to assist the situation now, but I urge them to use every lever at their disposal to avert this crisis before it spins entirely out of control.
Amanda Hack
Absolutely. The sad fact is that we always talk about teenagers, but if we can give that resilience to children as young as seven to 10, we might be able to prevent them from becoming poorly when they get older. We have to start those conversations as early as possible to build resilience and confidence in our young people. Putting mental health support in educational settings will mean not only that we can change the culture in schools for children struggling with their mental health, but that we will be able to see how young people can be supported in the right place, at the right time and in the right setting.
John Milne
On a point of order, Madam Deputy Speaker. In my speech, I referred to West Sussex county council but neglected to mention that, as declared in my entry in the Register of Members’ Financial Interests, I am still a member of that council. I want to put that on the record—my apologies.
Madam Deputy Speaker (Ms Nusrat Ghani)
I thank the hon. Member for his point of order. Now that he has put it on the record, it will be recorded as such.
We come now to the Front-Bench contributions. I call the Liberal Democrat spokesperson.
Children in Care
John Milne Excerpts(1 month, 3 weeks ago)
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John Whitby
I absolutely agree with my hon. Friend that the voice of the child is key at every step of the way. We must listen to children, so advocacy is entirely fundamental.
For full disclosure, I should say that I have not received fostering allowances since last May, as I have been busy doing other things, so I have nothing to gain by saying this, but the 32% of local authorities that pay allowances below the national minimum allowance will not attract new foster carers based on altruism alone. Foster carers need a reasonable amount of renumeration, like anyone else.
The result of more children needing foster care without a corresponding number of extra foster carers is a crisis in placement sufficiency, which means more children in highly expensive residential placements, in many cases a great distance from their home town.
John Milne (Horsham) (LD)
I thank the hon. Member for securing this very important debate. In my Horsham constituency, a family has approached me who are kinship carers for their grandson. They feel they are discriminated against in a system that gives more resources and attention to children in care than to kinship carers. Given the shortage of places in foster care, does the hon. Member agree that we need to do everything we can to balance up the support that kinship carers receive?
John Whitby
Unsurprisingly, I definitely agree with the hon. Member: of course we need to support children in kinship care. I am sure the Minister will talk about kinship care as well, and I am glad to say that part of the Children’s Wellbeing and Schools Bill requires local authorities to make an offer on kinship care, which is very positive.
As I was saying, a lack of foster care places means more children in highly expensive residential placements, in many cases a great distance from their home town. There is a very good chance that they will end up in the north-west, because that is where a quarter of children’s homes are located. Of course, some children need to be placed away from familiar surroundings, but not on this scale. It is great that the Government are looking to address this issue through the planning process, so that care homes can more easily be created where they are needed. Personally, I would like to see a focus on smaller homes, because they feel less institutionalised and are easier to integrate into the community.
The cost of some residential children’s home placements is extraordinary, and it is one of the factors pushing councils ever closer to section 104 notices. The cost of looked-after children has risen from £3.1 billion in 2009-10 to £7 billion in 2022-23.
Education, Health and Care Plans
John Milne Excerpts(2 months ago)
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John Milne (Horsham) (LD)
I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Chelmsford (Marie Goldman) on calling this vital debate.
EHCP provision is a national crisis, but how it plays out locally varies enormously. In East Sussex, 87% of EHCPs are issued within the 20-week target, but hop across the border to my area of West Sussex and it is just 3.6%—I thought that was the worst statistic out there, until I heard what is going on in Essex.
This crisis is destroying people’s lives. Take the example of Sarah—not her real name—from my Horsham constituency. Sarah’s son was offered a place at Crawley college, where it was claimed the post-16 SEND provision would be just right for him. Within weeks, the college said that they did not have the resources to support him and that he did not meet the minimum grades. He was excluded. Desperate to rescue his future, Sarah is now paying almost £500 a month for private tuition, and that is not the only cost; her son’s removal from full-time education means she no longer qualifies for the child element of universal credit, despite being his main care provider. Sarah is a single parent on a low, part-time income, and these are almost impossible obstacles to overcome. I recognise that this was not the present Government’s fault, but it is now their responsibility.