Special Educational Needs (Personal Budgets) Regulations 2014

Lord Pearson of Rannoch Excerpts

Monday 16th June 2014 Grand Committee

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Schools (Lord Nash) (Con)]

These regulations are the first to be laid under Part 3 of the Children and Families Act 2014—an Act which, following very careful and considerate scrutiny by your Lordships’ House, has the potential to make a massive difference to the lives of children and young people with special educational needs and disabilities. These regulations, made under Section 49 of the Act, will introduce the option of a personal budget for education, health and care plan holders from September 2014. Personal budgets can make a real difference to children and young people; indeed, life changing, according to some of our parents on the pathfinder programme.

However, we know that the introduction of personal budgets is complex and needs very careful consideration. Noble Lords may have some concerns about the introduction in September, especially in relation to the depth of testing of direct payments for SEN provision under the pilot scheme. The pathfinder experience has shown that if they are to work, parents must be given clear upfront information about their availability and advice and support on requesting, taking up and managing a personal budget. Pathfinders have also demonstrated that they have the most impact when they are a coherent element of personalisation within the new education, health and care planning process rather than an end in themselves. The introduction from September 2014, as part of the wider introduction of the reforms, means that local authorities will develop personal budgets as a coherent element of the new system rather than as a bolt-on at a later date.

I want to stress that our approach to implementation will be one of evolution rather than revolution, building on the experience of the pathfinders. The draft code of practice, laid before Parliament on 11 June and to be subject to a debate in this House in its own right, is clear on this issue. Subject to the will of Parliament it will, along with regulations covering the local offer and EHC plans, set out a flexible framework for implementation while providing a clear expectation of what local authorities must have in place by September of this year and how this should evolve over time as joint commissioning arrangements and local offers mature.

I turn now to the detail of the regulations we are considering today. They contain many of the provisions we have previously debated as part of the pilot scheme for direct payments for SEN provision. They give parents and young people the right to ask for a personal budget when an EHC plan is being prepared or during a statutory review of the plan. Parents must be given upfront information in relation to personal budgets, including information that we will require to be included in and consulted on as part of the local offer. We have maintained considerations in relation to value for money and impact on other service users, considerations that were included in the very first pilot scheme following discussions between the then Minister for Children and Families and the noble Lord, Lord Rix, and that have continued to be of concern in debates both in this House and in the other place. We have also repeated a requirement for the permission of a school or college, and have added early years settings where a direct payment is being used on their premises. I understand the concern that this is a get-out clause and could be a barrier to inclusion, especially in further education. However, we have not seen any evidence of this from the pathfinders and we think it is only right that institutions should have the final say on who can work on their premises. I can, however, reassure noble Lords that we will keep a careful eye on this issue.

Before I close I want to return to the subject of implementation. I would like to make noble Lords aware of the comprehensive package of support we have in place for local authorities to help them meet the complexities of implementation. This package includes an ever increasing portfolio of materials, including practical advice, case studies, checklists, programmes for workforce development and frameworks for implementation available on the SEN pathfinder website, all developed with expert support from local authorities, their partners and VCS groups working in this area including those representing parents.

On the latter point, we have some excellent examples of information for parents on personal budgets. These have been developed in partnership with parents and include exemplary work from our SE7 pathfinder and the Redcar and Cleveland-Middlesbrough SEN collaborative.

Our SEN advisers are visiting local authorities the length and breadth of the country to establish the level of individual support local areas need and, where necessary, making referrals to our pathfinder champion support team and the newly appointed national champions for personal development.

I know that noble Lords have been interested in the ongoing evaluation of personal budgets. As I stated when we discussed Section 49 of the Act in Committee, SQW, the evaluators of the pathfinder programme, are undertaking a thematic evaluation of personal budgets and integrated resources. The research will re-examine the progress that has been made by both pathfinder and non-pathfinder areas to identify good practice and lessons learnt, and inform the development of less advanced areas. It will be published later this summer.

With this support, and the framework for implementation set out in regulations and the code of practice, I am confident that we have an approach that will in coming years make a significant difference to the lives of children and young people. As such, I hope all noble Lords will give it their support.

[Lord Pearson of Rannoch (UKIP)]

My Lords I am very grateful to the Government and the noble Lord for bringing forward these regulations. I think that the Minister knows I have a long history, as the father of a Down’s syndrome daughter, of asking for this sort of thing. I particularly welcome, therefore, the inclusion of parents and families in these regulations, giving them a status which they have lacked for many years.

I trust the noble Lord will forgive me if my question is superfluous. I am not sure whether I heard him say anything about the portability of these arrangements. If a young person or a child moves from one local authority to another, is there machinery in place to ensure that what has been agreed with one local authority will be transferred to another?

[Lord Addington (LD)]

My Lords, for once when I find myself talking about the noble Lord, Lord Nash, I am basically saying “Well done”, because the approach to bring parents more into the process and to bring the expertise and support together is very positive. Particularly in the case of certain types of needs or a certain child, the parent is usually the expert, at least initially, and to bring that expertise in is often required.

It is also the case that if one gets an individual need or even indeed something more commonly occurring, it is not uncommon to find a parent who has the time and energy to focus on their child to become more informed about that one child than the professional educators. So this has the potential to be a very good thing.

The devil, of course, will be in the detail and how it is seen through, but at least we have a willingness here to accept that it will need to change and develop, and it will not be one size fits all. This is probably a very good thing. I am sure that politicians and local authorities have the capacity to mess it up themselves, and not all parents will be that well informed and intentioned, but as a basic approach, I think there is much more good than harm in this.