Children: Speech and Language
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Lord Ramsbotham
My Lords, I beg leave to ask the Question standing in my name on the Order Paper, and declare an interest as chairman of the All-Party Group on Speech and Language Difficulties.
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Schools (Lord Nash)
My Lords, my department and the Department of Health are working with the Communication Trust and its partners to disseminate this excellent research, and I am grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Ramsbotham, for giving the House the opportunity to discuss this today. The research will help those who plan, commission and deliver support for children and young people with speech, language and communication needs to improve the way they identify those who need help and the effectiveness of the support they provide. We will take account of the findings of the research in developing plans for the local offer.
Lord Ramsbotham
My Lords, I am grateful to the Minister for that reply. We have been waiting for the government response to this quite excellent programme since last June, and I remind the House that it consists of a report, two volumes of findings, four thematic reviews and 10 technical reports, which have been drawn up by experts over a considerable period and represent an absolute mine of evaluation, information and advice. I feel that we have not yet heard who will actually be responsible for driving the whole thing forward. The Minister mentioned the Departments of Education and Health, but there is also the Department for Communities and Local Government, the Ministry of Justice, the Department for Work and Pensions and others whose contribution must be aggregated to make the best of what is in this report for all the children in this country.
Lord Nash
My Lords, I agree with noble Lord, Lord Ramsbotham, that this is landmark research which is undoubtedly the most extensive of its kind into the subject. The issues that it raises are so wide-ranging that they are clearly not the province of one agency or government department, as the noble Lord says, which is why we want to make sure that the research is widely available and disseminated as widely as possible. My department and the Department of Health are working closely with the Communication Trust to co-chair the communication council which the Communication Trust is facilitating. The council brings together representatives from government, local authorities, health agencies, the Royal College of Speech and Language Therapists, early-years settings, and schools, parents, young people and the voluntary sector. The council will keep up the momentum by developing a comprehensive dissemination plan for the research, sharing learning about effective approaches to supporting children with SEN and promoting better awareness of speech, language and communication needs.
Baroness Whitaker
My Lords, my profound apologies for over-eagerness, especially in view of the noble Lord’s excellent question.
The Better Communication Research Programme places great emphasis on regular monitoring of children’s language development over time so that when they need support, they can get it in the right way. How will the Government ensure that the need for regular monitoring is reflected in local authorities’ local offers?
Lord Nash
We regard the solution to this issue as a local one. That is why we will be setting up the local offer involving children and young people with SEN and their parents and we will publish details of where parents can find all this available in one place. As young people will have an education, health and social care plan which will be reviewed every year, this will monitor the issues to which the noble Baroness refers.
Lord Storey
My Lords, the Better Communication Research Programme report looked at speech and language therapy support in schools, and according to the report only 10% of mainstream secondary schools have such support. My noble friend the Minister will be aware that the provision of speech and language therapy throughout the country is very patchy. How can the Government ensure that anybody who needs this service can access it as quickly and efficiently as possible?
Lord Nash
My Lords, I know that the noble Lord has vast experience in education and I am grateful for his question. We are sharing widely the good practice in the better communications research where speech and language therapists work with teachers and teaching assistants to provide support. He is absolutely right about a divergence in provision around the country and the shortage of funds, but it must be for local authorities and their partners to assess local needs and to make better use of resources so that they are directed where they are needed. Our proposal for a local offer will do this and will put parents and young people at the heart of decisions.
Lord Howarth of Newport
My Lords, the Minister told us just now that the Department of Health and the Department for Education are working closely together in this area. With respect, for many years the two departments have claimed to be working closely together but when it comes to determining who pays for what, they have been quite unable to agree. Can the noble Lord assure us that he will personally use his own best endeavours to ensure that, in future, there is a proper complementarity of responsibilities in terms of how the funding is found for special needs education and for speech therapy in particular?
Lord Nash
I thank the noble Lord for his question, and he is absolutely right about the poor record in cross-departmental work, particularly in this area. I shall investigate the matter and write to him further about it. I think he will be pleased with what he sees in the forthcoming Bill on this.
Lord Hunt of Kings Heath
My Lords, we have heard from the noble Lord’s colleague from the Department for Communities and Local Government that the north-west has been abolished as a region. Does the Minister’s department recognise the north-west?
Education: English Baccalaureate Certificate
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Baroness Jones of Whitchurch
To ask Her Majesty’s Government whether they will consider deferring the timetable for the proposed introduction of the English Baccalaureate Certificate in schools in the light of concerns raised by the Confederation of British Industry and other business leaders that the new examination system may not meet the needs of the United Kingdom economy in the 21st century.
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Schools (Lord Nash)
My Lords, the CBI recognises that the exam system is in need of a thorough overhaul. We share its view that the new system must meet the needs of business. We are considering all the evidence gathered through our public consultation, which closed in December, and we anticipate reporting the results of that consultation, including the timetable for introduction, early this year.
Baroness Jones of Whitchurch
I thank the Minister for that reply and I welcome him to his new role. Given his extensive business background, does he not share the view of other business leaders that the new exams in 2015 risk causing serious long-term damage to our economy by downgrading skills such as engineering, computing and construction, and neglecting creative learning? Can he also confirm that it is the Government’s intention to issue pupils who do not pass their EBacc certificate with a certificate of attainment which, as anyone with experience in the state sector knows, will have no value at all with employers and universities? Finally, does he accept the overwhelming logic of putting the proposals on hold so that business leaders really can help to develop a respected, work-ready curriculum with exams that will enable young people to be successful in the modern world?
Lord Nash
My Lords, the point underlying this Question may be a little confusion about the stimulus to the system we have created through the EBacc and a broad and balanced curriculum. I should like to reassure the noble Baroness that the Government are determined to ensure that all pupils study a broad and balanced curriculum so that they have the cultural capital to be able to compete both in this country and in the modern world. We have had to stimulate some behaviour through the EBacc because all the international evidence we have studied shows that successful international countries include these core academic subjects, and that stimulus has been extremely successful. Over the past two years, the proportion of pupils taking the EBacc has risen from 23% to 49%, and for those schools with a high element of free school meals, it has risen from 10% to 41%. However, we will also be exhorting all schools to teach a broad and balanced curriculum, as they are obliged to do and as Ofsted inspects for.
Lord Bichard
My Lords, does the Minister agree that the creative industries represent one of the most important sectors of the British economy? However, is he aware of the acute concern across that sector about the way the Government appear to undervalue the teaching and learning of creative skills, not least in the proposals for the EBacc? Further, could he use his considerable influence to persuade the Secretary of State for Education just once to make a public speech that recognises the importance of creative skills?
Lord Nash
The Government do recognise the importance of creative skills. As I have said, we are keen for all pupils to have the cultural capital that enables them to compete. As my old friend Sir Peter Lampl at the Sutton Trust has pointed out, 7% of the population of this country go to independent, private, fee-paying schools and get 44% of the top jobs. Some 4.9% go to grammar schools and get 27% of the top jobs, while the rest, 88%, get less than 30% of the top jobs. In order to enable our pupils to compete both in this country and internationally, they need a broad curriculum and they must have that cultural capital. However, I hear what the noble Lord says and I will take these matters away for consideration.
Baroness Walmsley
Does my noble friend the Minister accept that assessment only by examination at the end of the course discriminates against girls and some pupils with particular disabilities, who find that they can demonstrate their learning more effectively through coursework? If there is some concern about cheating in coursework, surely there is another way to deal with that problem, rather than just disposing of coursework as an assessment tool.
Lord Nash
As well as seeking views through our public consultation, we have also held focus discussions with a number of disability and SEN expert groups and are reviewing a wide range of views covering the proposals for all pupils. The assessment method should be suitable for the knowledge in schools, and be fair and practical. The noble Baroness is right to point out the potential for unfairness with coursework but I know that many schools feel that controlled assessment, which was introduced to combat parents doing their children’s coursework for them, is burdensome and takes up a substantial amount of time that could otherwise be used for teaching.
I will consider the point the noble Baroness raised about girls. Although many people believe anecdotally that coursework favours girls, the evidence is mixed. I know she is not suggesting that it is acceptable to discriminate against boys, who, after all, generally do worse than girls in many subjects.
Baroness McIntosh of Hudnall
My Lords, referring back to the question asked by the noble Lord, Lord Bichard, can the noble Lord confirm that the Government received with enthusiasm Darren Henley’s recent excellent report on cultural education? If so, can he say how the Government plan to implement the report’s recommendations?
Baroness Wheatcroft
My Lords, does my noble friend the Minister agree that one of the most common complaints from industry has been about the lack of employability of so many school leavers because of their lack of numeracy and literacy? Does he also agree that in the United States a lot of children are taught computer programming, whereas in this country we tend to teach technology as the use of technology, and that programming would be a great advantage?
Lord Broers
My Lords, I come at this from a slightly different angle. Can the Minister assure us that those students who go on to A-levels are no longer in effect forced to specialise either on the arts and humanities or on maths and the sciences, and that they will be required to carry a broader curriculum through their schooling?
Children and Young People
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The Earl of Listowel
To ask Her Majesty’s Government what steps they are taking to ensure that children and young people in the care of the state, and making the transition from state care, experience reliable and enduring relationships, including with siblings, foster carers and social workers.
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Schools (Lord Nash)
I thank the noble Earl for his gracious words. This is the first time that I have addressed your Lordships’ House, and it is a great honour to be able to do so. I thank the House and the staff for being so incredibly welcoming and kind and, as this is my first appearance at the Dispatch Box, I am tempted to say, “Long may it continue”.
I thank the noble Earl for raising an important issue for my first Question because, although it is not within my department’s brief, it has troubled me for many years. Lasting and supportive relationships are particularly important for children in care and their long-term outcomes. That is why we are taking action to increase the speed and number of adoptions, to improve the recruitment and training of foster carers and social workers, and to raise the quality of care in children’s homes. We also have a programme of work to improve support for care leavers making the important transition into adulthood.
The Earl of Listowel
My Lords, I thank the Minister for his reply and his gracious words. I welcome him to the House of Lords, congratulate him on his appointment to the Front Bench, and apologise to him for not putting those words a little earlier in these discussions.
The children in care who often have the most broken relationships are those in children’s homes, often having had many placements in foster care before arriving there. Is the Minister aware of the very good example of Break children’s homes in Norfolk, where the average stay for a child is two years—often children will stay for four years or more—and active efforts are made by the homes to keep in touch with children once they move on into adulthood? Will the Minister look at this best practice to see whether it can be applied more widely to children’s homes in general where the turnover is high? On average it is seven months.
Lord Nash
I shall try to get the words out in the right order now. I agree that many children in children’s homes have had failed foster placements. Our statistics show that 29% of children placed in children’s homes have had five or more previous placements. I have met quite a few children who have had over 20 placements. That is why we set up the expert working group: to look at how to improve the quality of support these children receive, building on good practice. This group has now reported to Ministers, and Ministers will make announcements on this shortly. We recognise Break’s impressive record—four years is an impressive average length of stay—and that is why we invited Hilary Richards of Break to be a member of the department’s expert group on quality.
Baroness Hughes of Stretford
My Lords, before he lost his job, the previous Minister for Children, Tim Loughton, said that it was a scandal that there remains under this Government,
“an enormous and widening attainment gap”,
between children in the care of the state and their peers, and that this is still evident throughout the school system and in further and higher education. In welcoming the noble Lord to his brief, which I think includes educational attainment, can he tell the House what priority he will put on the educational attainment of children in care and what steps he will take to close the attainment gap?
Lord Nash
The Government have strongly encouraged local authorities to have a senior educational officer known as a virtual school head to track closely the progress of every child in care and ensure they receive the support they need. Children in care are entitled to free early education for two year-olds, the pupil premium while at school and the new 16-to-19 further education bursary. Every child in care has to have a personal education plan setting out how they will be supported to fulfil their potential. Every school, including academies and free schools, has a legal duty to have a designated looked-after child teacher, and children in care get top priority in school admissions.
Baroness Gardner of Parkes
My Lords, I asked a Question many years ago about adoption, and it has been asked again many times since. The age at which children are adopted is still far too high. Could we not avoid having so many children in care by applying more widely the concurrent adoption system, whereby a parent hoping to adopt can have the child to foster at a very early stage, even before the age of one year? All the world recognises that bonding works far better if a child comes to a family as early as possible. Would that not save us having ever so many unattractively aged children who people do not seem to want to adopt, sadly?
Lord Nash
I share my noble friend’s concerns on this. There is no doubt that the average time taken for a child to be adopted—two years and seven months, and a further year for a black child—is far too long. It is also true to say that would-be adopters in the system have not been well treated, when they should be welcomed with open arms. We are determined to reduce the time taken for adoption, and have introduced adoption scorecards to compare the performance of different local authorities, which varies widely. We have also published draft laws to stop ethnicity being a barrier to adoption. We are addressing the adoption recruitment problem by streamlining the adoption approval process, and we have published draft laws that promote the idea of fostering for adoption much earlier.
The Lord Bishop of Ripon and Leeds
My Lords, has the Minister noted the Children’s Society report on the value of advocacy? It highlights significant inconsistencies in young people’s access to an independent advocate. What are the Government doing to improve the availability of advocacy services for children and young people in the care of the state?
Lord Nash
The Government believe that listening to those who use services is one of the best ways to improve them. Indeed, a lot of the new Ofsted framework is based on what it has been told by children, and the framework is now much more focused on outcomes for children. We have strengthened the children in care councils and strengthened legislation on the role of the independent reviewing officers to give them a duty to monitor the support provided for children under their care plans.
Baroness Brinton
My Lords, following the Minister’s helpful comments about service users’ comments, the Care Leavers’ Association has grown steadily since it was formed in 2000 and, in its own words, is:
“An ever growing union of care leavers”.
Its advice and support is exemplary and a real help to young people getting ready to leave care. Can the Minister assure the House that every child facing the transition into leaving care is given the link to this website by their social worker, foster parent or care home manager?
Lord Nash
My Lords, the Care Leavers’ Association is an excellent user-led charity run by care leavers for care leavers. I agree that local authorities should give information to all care leavers about the support and advice that they can get from a range of voluntary sector groups, including the Care Leavers’ Association.
Lord Northbourne
Does the Minister agree that damaged children who have been passed from pillar to post in the care system often have a desperate need for secure attachment to one or more adults who care not only for them but about them? Are local authorities implementing their obligations under the Children (Leaving Care) Act 2000 and, in doing so, are they paying sufficient attention to a troubled child’s need for secure attachment and a sense of belonging?
Lord Nash
I agree entirely with the noble Lord’s comments about relationships and attachment. I myself have spoken to many people who have told me that the worst experience of care is the loneliness of leaving it. It has always troubled me that we spend a lot of money and time with these young people but they are then often left on their own when they leave care. This is something that troubles us greatly. We are taking action to recruit and retain more social workers and, to focus on this, are reforming and improving their ongoing training. We have, for instance, invested more money in the excellent programme, From Care2Work, started by the previous Government to help care leavers into work. We recently published the Charter for Care Leavers, and the Minister for Children wrote to all DCSs on 30 October last year, mentioning not only the charter but data packs on care leavers and the staying-put arrangements, which seem to be working quite well and which we will be promoting further.