SEND and Alternative Provision

Lord Bishop of St Albans Excerpts

Thursday 9th March 2023 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Barran (Con)]

On the noble Baroness’s first point about teachers having lost confidence in the system, I hope that some of the work that we are doing will help rebuild that. As she knows, the national standards will set much clearer definitions of need in particular, rather than necessarily diagnosis, so that there is clarity and consistency across schools and local authority areas.

We are also producing a number of practice guides for teachers and schools, which we hope will be really helpful. They focus on what are perhaps three of the most prevalent and important areas—autism, speech and language, and mental health and well-being—which, as the noble Baroness knows very well, are all extremely important issues. We are establishing the nine regional expert partnerships to create this co-operation between parents, local authorities, schools and health, ensuring that whatever we are doing is tested in practice to make sure that it works in the interests of both the child and the workforce.

I imagine that the question on the admissions issue is, in part, an extension of the first question on confidence. The other thing we see which is really different in different parts of the country is the degree of co-operation between real specialists. In some places, there are providers of special schools with huge expertise, which are in a position to work very collaboratively with their local mainstream schools, but that is less the case in other places. In the areas of alternative provision, behaviour management and support, and special educational needs and disabilities, that collaboration and co-operation is felt to be a really productive and rich place to start to ensure that every child can get to the school they want to go to.

[The Lord Bishop of St Albans]

My Lords, I too thank His Majesty’s Government for the improvement plan. I commend what they are doing to try to get a much more integrated approach and some of the resources mentioned in the plan. However, I share the concern raised by the noble Baroness, Lady Twycross, about implementation. The stories I pick up from grass-roots situations in Bedfordshire and Hertfordshire, where I serve, show that there are still some very serious problems, and some children are now being failed immediately.

I will ask a couple of questions. First, having a specialised workforce in place will be crucial, so can the Minister tell us what support they expect to receive from the DHSC, especially as such a great strain is placed on the health and social care workforce? The second question is about diagnosis, so that children can have access to the support mentioned in the content of the plan. What support is the DHSC able to provide to CAMHS to ensure that there is support to deliver this plan?

[Baroness Barran (Con)]

As the right reverend Prelate said, that co-operation between health, education and children’s social care is absolutely critical, so that they are closely joined together. We will bring more clarity and clearer accountability through new inspections conducted jointly by Ofsted and the CQC, which will focus very much on outcomes and experiences for children, young people and their families. In turn, that will feed into and reflect the local inclusion plans, where health is a critical partner.

On issues around the mental health workforce, the right reverend Prelate will be aware that we are doing a lot of work to ensure that we have direct support in schools, so that, wherever possible, mental health issues do not need to escalate to CAMHS.