SEND Provision and Funding

Kevin Foster Excerpts

Thursday 11th January 2024 Commons Chamber

[Kevin Foster (Torbay) (Con)]

I congratulate the right hon. Member for Haltemprice and Howden (Sir David Davis) on securing the debate and on the strength of his opening speech, which set out well the issues faced across the country.

Many colleagues have already outlined the overall funding challenges facing SEND services, so given the limited time I will focus on another aspect: the impact of delays in diagnosis and the wider opportunities for making an impact on this issue, which inevitably impacts on the funding of it.

It might be helpful to illustrate the issues being faced by using the example of Barton Hill Academy in Torquay. I want to thank the principal, Samantha Smith, and her team for the work they do to inspire and educate so many of our next generation, particularly those with additional needs. Barton Hill Academy has two classrooms for students with additional needs: one for younger students with issues such as autism; and another for slightly older students with mental health and behavioural issues. It deploys several staff members to support those students. Many students are waiting for a diagnosis through the NHS. The school has assigned a member of staff to help support parents of children with autism through the process and to fill out the referral forms, but it is still a difficult process. The delay in getting an assessment and a diagnosis through the NHS, which is not directly related to the education system, inevitably has an impact, because until there is a diagnosis there is not the ability to provide the service that is needed or, in some cases, to look at moving to more appropriate provision.

One key issue raised is that headteachers can be left with a rather unenviable choice. They can keep someone with them who is clearly having an impact on the wider school, when the type of resources they have available are not suitable for them. That said, they know that the issue is not so much behaviour as the fact that the pupil concerned has medical needs that are not being met and is awaiting diagnosis. That can lead to the unenviable process of deciding whether to exclude the pupil, which is far more suitable in the case of those with behavioural issues. In practical terms, headteachers feel that that is the choice they must start to consider, given the impact on the wider school and the fact that it is not set up to deal with that pupil’s needs, but in moral terms it is highly unlikely to produce the best outcome for the child.

This really comes back to the issue of getting the assessments done and ensuring that there can be a clear link between an NHS service and the impact for SEND. One family opted for private provision because they were told that there was a three-year waiting list for an appointment with a paediatrician for an official assessment, which would have meant that their primary-school child would be at secondary school before they saw any outcome from the assessment. The family paid £300 for a private diagnosis, but some local authorities do not accept such diagnoses as a basis for educational provision.

It was useful to discuss with Torbay Council the challenges that it faced—although I welcome the improvements that have been made in the delivery of children’s services in Torbay under a number of political parties in recent years. Council representatives cited the impact of early intervention through family hubs. We need to ask what provision there is when people start to home-educate their children, and I think some reviews could be carried out in that regard. We also need to ask what can be done about prioritisation in NHS lists. Rather than people working methodically through a backlog, there should be a point at which children who are in need of treatment but face potential exclusion from mainstream schools could be prioritised for appointments that become available for the usual reasons why an appointment might become available at short notice.

I am interested to hear what the Minister can say about family hub funding beyond next year, and about what focus there will be on overall SEN skills across the wider teaching profession. SENCOs are clearly important, but now that more children with additional needs are in mainstream schools, this is an issue that more teachers are encountering. There is also the question of 90% attendance targets in the context of funding, and how that can be gradated for those with fairly low attendance. Finally, there is the need for co-ordination with the NHS.

The debate has given us a welcome chance to discuss these issues, and, again, I congratulate my right hon. Friend on securing it.