Children and Families Bill

Lord Addington Excerpts

Wednesday 30th October 2013 Grand Committee

[Lord Touhig (Lab)]

My Lords, I have added my name to that of the noble Lord, Lord Low of Dalston, on Amendment 155 and it is to that cause that I wish to speak. If there is one thing where I find myself at one with the Government, it is in our shared ambition to encourage young disabled people to have the highest aspirations for their lives and to be self-assured and confident about their future. More and more disabled youngsters are liberating themselves, to the extent of refusing to accept their disability as a barrier. They are self-assured, confident and determined to have a full life.

For many, the pathway to that full life is through a university education but higher education facilities are currently excluded from the new framework created by the Bill. Given that I share with the Government this ambition that disabled youngsters should have the highest aspirations, I am mystified why they should be excluded. Indeed, I am sure that I am not alone in this Committee in thinking that. Many universities already meet the educational needs of disabled young people. Surely we want to feed and encourage this.

All too often, unfortunately, disabled students, even when given first-class support at universities, find it hard to access other services that they need. A report by the Trailblazers group found that 30% of young disabled people felt that the number of places where they could study was limited because of their concerns about an all-round care package. One student named Zoe, who was at Oxford, told Trailblazers:

“My local council had never sent a disabled person away to university before. They were quite insistent that I should stay and study at my local university (ranked at 119th as opposed to Oxford, ranked first), and do a course that I had absolutely no interest in. My decision to move away was treated with complete bewilderment; there was no understanding of how my care package would be accommodated, and the idea that agency care was more expensive in the new local authority caused real problems when negotiating”.

Lauren, who graduated from Manchester in 2012 and is now doing a master’s degree at Leeds, recalled:

“My local authority would not give me the required hours straight off. We had to appeal. Luckily we started the process a year before so had enough time to do this”.

Katy, who studies at Bedford, said:

“After an argument my home county agreed to pay for my personal care but I nearly didn’t qualify for funding as their criteria for supporting people was for those whose needs were ‘substantial or severe’”.

Finally, Rupert, who is at Canterbury Christchurch, added:

“First of all, I was living in Lewisham and Lewisham Council didn’t want to tell us that they were responsible for providing and funding the care themselves. They knew they had to but didn’t inform me. We found out through other sources, so they eventually paid up”.

Disability discrimination legislation has been in force since 1995, yet disabled people still have to struggle for equal access in many areas of our national life. Young people with a disability face challenges and hurdles enough that the rest of us do not face. Amendment 155 is a step in the right direction. It is one more step in creating a level playing field for all our citizens, able-bodied and disabled, thus ensuring that all can use their talents to the full and have a full life.

[Lord Addington (LD)]

Sometimes higher education provides better support than further education. I must declare that I have commercial interests in a firm that enables it to be done through the DSA. The transition between the two bits of education is probably unnecessarily complex. Making sure there is a smoother connection and an exchange of education from higher to further and the other way around would enhance the system and would probably allow people to study better in both places. I am interested to hear what my noble friend has to say on this matter. This is a recognised problem of transition and has been around a long time. It will be interesting to hear the Government’s thinking on this matter.

[Lord Lucas (Con)]

My Lords, we have had a briefing from Universities UK on this subject, which I suspect was compiled largely by talking to registrars, who wish that the problem would go away and who feel that it is not really their responsibility. I think disability officers in universities would take a rather different attitude, which is that they are not receiving the support they need regarding health and social care from their local authorities or clinical commissioning groups, which tend to regard the itinerant student population as somebody else’s responsibility and to think that an 18-month waiting list for mental health treatment for a student is appropriate.

I think there is a wish within universities for a better connected, more responsive system, such as we are putting in place for students in FE. I understand from what various noble Lords, particularly the noble Baroness, Lady Brinton, have said that there are some aspects of the system that has been put in place for younger ages that would not fit universities. We ought to look carefully at what would suit university students. We ought to do so by talking to the people in universities who have to deal with these problems. They are conscious that the system they face at the moment is not by any means as good as it might be, and not as good as the sorts of things we are putting in place through this Bill.

I hope my noble friend will allow me to come and keep her company between now and Report with some of the people who deal with this as a daily issue in higher education to see whether there are some changes, whether in guidance or the Bill—I suspect probably in guidance—that would alleviate the problems they suffer in doing well by the disabled students they have to look after.

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[Baroness Brinton]

My Lords, my noble friend Lady Sharp is not able to be in her place at the moment so, in her absence, I am speaking to the amendment in her name, Amendment 106. This is a probing amendment intended to obtain reassurances from Ministers that the entitlements of children and young people with SEN and their families will not be weakened by the passage of the Bill or by the revision of the statutory SEN code of practice.

The local offer, as currently described in Clause 30, imposes a significantly weaker and more narrowly defined duty on local authorities than the equivalent provision in the Special Educational Needs (Provision of Information by Local Education Authorities) (England) Regulations 2001, which remain in force. These regulations set out what information a local authority must provide, including, among other things, requirements to provide information about the action that the local authority is taking to promote high standards of education for children with SEN, and what action the local authority is taking to encourage schools in their area to share best practice in making provision for children with SEN. There must also be information about the general arrangements, including any plans, objectives and timescales for: monitoring the admission of children with SEN—whether or not they have a statement—to schools in their area; providing support to schools in the area with regard to making special educational provision for children with SEN; auditing, planning, monitoring and reviewing provision for children with SEN in their area; securing training, advice and support for staff working in their area with children with SEN; and securing training, advice and support for staff working in their area for children with SEN.

The information that I have just listed is important for parents, but it also incorporates a set of important principles in relation to education for pupils with SEN: the recognition that pupils with SEN need high standards of provision; that these standards should be regularly monitored and reviewed; that teachers need training, advice and support; and that schools should collaborate to share good practice.

Clause 30 merely provides that regulations may make provision about the information to be included in an authority’s local offer. It is important that the information listed in the 2001 regulations is collected and publicised by local authorities. The local offer should carry this forward into the new framework. It is not clear that this will be the case with the loose wording of the Bill. As far as I can see, there is nothing proposed in the code of conduct which would impose these duties on local authorities. Are the 2001 regulations going to be carried forward? What is the position? I would be grateful if the Minister could clarify the situation.

[Lord Addington]

I shall speak to my Amendment 108A. I should probably declare again the interests I have already mentioned. I declare another interest: I am a convert to the fact that assistive technology and computing generally can transform somebody’s life because I use assistive technology for everything I send out. Without voice operation, I cannot send an e-mail unless I take a week over it, and I cannot guarantee to send it properly. This is due to dyslexia. However, there are dozens of different types of assistive-technology solutions for dozens of different types of problems. You can now get a computer which bounces light off the user’s eyes to transfer the user around the screen. This was pure science fiction a few years ago. You have to run to keep up with the ideas and even the names of the technology at the moment.

The technology allows people to act independently. I could have stuck something at the end of another list about independence. I could have added a paragraph (d) to subsection (3) to provide that when you go into adult life you get a package to go with you. You probably already do. Access to work will give you some assistance, so there is a degree of consensus around this. Getting assistive technology early is very important because it allows people independence. I hope my noble friend will be able to give me some idea about how it is being taken on. What is being done to allow people to work like this? It is great to have somebody at your shoulder who assists you all the time. Unfortunately, you cannot take them home with you or guarantee that they will be with you when you are middle-aged, so learning to use other forms of assistance is vital. I hope that we will get a positive answer there.

The idea of the expression “assessment settings” is to find out how we will integrate the use of information technology into the examination system. The noble Lord, Lord Nash, has proved himself tough, durable but human by not being here. I have had some discussions with him on this subject. The Government seem interested in making sure that you can get into the examination system properly—I will return to this subject when we reach apprenticeships—but only if you make sure that the examination that is set online is compatible with the assistive technology that is used. If you get the wrong format, the two computing systems cannot talk to each other, so you cannot take the examination. In many parts of the examination system we go back to nurse—an amanuensis or extra time. It does not take a genius to figure out that those are two fairly blunt instruments. The first removes a great deal of responsibility from you, and the other is of limited utility. Extra time has attracted a great deal of attention because people say people are getting more of it. I have always wondered how much assistance extra time is if you do not know the answer. I suspect that 25% extra time to stare at a blank page does not help very much.

However, some idea of how that is progressing in the Government’s thinking would be extremely helpful at this time, as it all ties into the important standards of education—examinations. I look forward to what my noble friend will say about this and I hope that this is the start of a positive discourse on the subject.

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We feel that we have addressed the issues my noble friend is talking about but I see him looking at me intently, as ever. He and those advising him might like to look at the draft SEN code of practice. Chapter 5 deals with the guidance on the local offer and chapter 6 refers to the responsibilities of education settings for identifying and supporting children and young people with SEN. If they feel that there are problems with the text and are concerned that there should be improvements, we would obviously welcome that input.

[Lord Addington]

I thank my noble friend for that offer. However, before we do that, will she consider how the whole chain needs to be put together, including the examining bodies, providers, teachers and so on? This comes from experience of a breakdown in this area.

[Baroness Northover]

I am very happy for us to look right across the board. We need to focus on the individual child or young person and their experience throughout the system.

Coming to Amendment 109, we can assure the noble Baroness, Lady Hughes, and the noble Lord, Lord Touhig, that the term, “finding employment” in the Bill goes wider than providing support for young people in looking for jobs—important though that obviously is. As the noble Baroness, Lady Hughes, noted, the draft code of practice refers to the local offer including information about support available for job coaches, for example, who can support young people when they are working, and the financial support available, including accessing any benefits from the Department of Work and Pensions, both when looking for work and when employed.

Noble Lords pressed harder about support to stay in employment, which is extremely important. I assure them that we are well aware of that. Preparing for adulthood is an important element in the SEN reforms. Clause 30(2) requires local authorities to include in the local offer,

“provision to assist in preparing children and young people for adulthood and independent living”.

That term is defined in subsection (3) as,

“finding employment … obtaining accommodation … participation in society”.

Support for preparing for adulthood would include the kind of support that young people can expect when they are in employment. I hope that noble Lords find that reassuring as a very important point is being made there.

The noble Lord, Lord Ramsbotham, said that he was pressing the case again, rightly, on speech and language communication, and the provision for children and young people. No doubt we will continue to discuss this as it is a very important area. We recognise the importance of this, and the Government are supporting the work of the Communication Trust—I expect he knows that—including through a grant of £550,000 over two years to pilot an online speech, language and communication qualification for early years practitioners. That shows our commitment. We are also providing £1.5 million to the trust to identify gaps in provision and services, which will no doubt spark more amendments from the noble Lord, to promote and extend the What Works database of evidence-based interventions and to implement the reforms in Part 3. I hope that that is an indication of the seriousness with which we treat this.

Regulation 10 of Schedule 1 to the draft local offer regulations sets out the requirement to include:

“Speech and language and other therapies, including any criteria that must be satisfied before this provision can be provided”.

The noble Lord makes a very important point about how practitioners, from health visitors to those supporting children in school, need to work together. That is one of the reasons for the local offer: to try to bring all this together so that support for these children is delivered in a much more effective way.

The noble Lord, Lord Ramsbotham, asked about child development and is expecting a letter from my noble friend Lord Nash. I think that that is in train, if it has not already come out. If it has not come out, I am sure that it will speed along.