Education Bill

Lord Touhig Excerpts

Tuesday 18th October 2011 Lords Chamber

[Lord Low of Dalston]

My Lords, I shall speak also to Amendments 24 to 28. I shall speak as briefly as I can because these amendments had a good airing in Committee. However, I was unfortunately unable to be present when they were discussed and so I will take this opportunity to say a few words on them—not just for the sake of it, of course, for the Government have come some way to meet us, but because some concerns remain, which have been raised with me by the Special Education Consortium, on which it would be helpful to have reassurances from the Minister.

The amendments relate to Clause 4, which toughens up the arrangements for pupil exclusions. Clause 4 makes significant changes to the appeals process and removes the power from the proposed independent review panel to order the reinstatement of an excluded child except in cases of direct disability discrimination. There are many children with special educational needs who are not the subject of disability discrimination, and the purpose of the amendments is to introduce safeguards into the exclusion process to deal with their case.

Amendment 15 makes provision for regulations to require that where a pupil has been excluded from school for a fixed period on two or more occasions in a 12-month period, or is at risk of permanent exclusion, a head teacher must ensure that there is an assessment of whether the child has unidentified learning needs, that there is a review of the effectiveness of the special educational provision being made if the pupil has identified special educational needs, and that there is a review of the effectiveness of the reasonable adjustments being made if the pupil has a disability.

Amendments 24 to 28 would require regulations to make provision for a number of things: for parents to request a SEN expert to advise the panel on SEN issues; about the information parents are given on their right to request a SEN expert; the skills and qualifications that a SEN expert must have; the ability of the SEN expert to review the needs of the child and whether the school has put the correct support in place; the duty of the school to co-operate with the work of the SEN expert; and the ability of parents to select a SEN expert of their choice.

The Government have moved some way on these issues from where they started in the other place and it is clear that they do not wish to disadvantage children with special educational needs. Indeed, they have published draft guidance on exclusions which recognises the need to protect children with SEN, which I very much welcome. However, there are some outstanding concerns. The guidance is clear that head teachers should, as far as possible, avoid permanently excluding children with SEN. However, the guidance needs to be more specific and detailed at this point. Have all the steps been taken which need to be taken? This could include additional adjustments, critical extra support or other interventions which may play a crucial role in preventing exclusion. The guidance moves too quickly to discussing alternative placements without encouraging schools to consider whether they have answered all these questions. I should be grateful if the Minister could address this point in his response.

The guidance focuses heavily on preventing exclusions of statemented pupils. This is, of course, very important. However, it is important also to bear in mind that some 18 per cent of children, or roughly 1.4 million children, with a special educational need do not have a statement. I ask the Minister to consider extending the guidance to address the needs of children on school action or school action plus. Children on school action plus may have substantial needs but do not have the protection afforded by a statement of SEN. Such children are more than 20 times more likely to be excluded than the rest of the school population and so additional safeguards are clearly needed in their case.

I turn now to the remaining concerns about the SEN experts and the role they could play in advising an independent review panel. I welcome the clarity that the draft guidance brings in relation to the impartiality and expertise of the SEN expert, but retaining parental confidence is key to the success of these reforms and it is with that in mind that I have tabled these amendments again. The school’s role is key here and yet the guidance does not make clear that schools should be required to inform parents of their right to request a SEN expert when their child is excluded. The SEN expert clearly has a vital role to play in protecting the interests of the child and yet the guidance states in terms that the expert’s role does not include making an assessment of the pupil’s special educational needs or making a judgment about whether the school has taken the appropriate steps to meet the child’s needs.

As I have said, I welcome the guidance’s clarity on the need for an expert on special educational needs. However, it remains unclear whether this expert will have the requisite understanding and experience of the disability or SEN in question. I ask the Minister to consider revising the guidance to make it clearer that “expert” should also mean “relevant”.

My final point on the expert relates again to parental confidence. As it stands, the expert will be paid for by the local authority if the child is in a maintained school and by the school if in an academy or free school. While I welcome the guidance stating that local authorities should take reasonable steps to offer a choice of expert and that the expert cannot be connected with the case, it remains a concern that the paymaster should be the institution that the parent is appealing against. If it could be made unambiguously clear that parents could have the expert of their choice, that would surely help to bolster confidence in the independence of the system. I hope that the Minister can give me some reassurance on this point and on my other points as well. I beg to move.

[Lord Touhig]

My Lords, I support the amendment of the noble Lord, Lord Low, who has made a powerful case articulating the concerns that still exist despite the good debate that we had in Committee on exclusions. I do not intend to rehearse the arguments deployed in Committee, save to remind the House that the Government’s equality impact assessment states that 72 per cent of all pupil exclusions from schools in England are youngsters with special educational needs. That 72 per cent is a very high figure, and one we need to keep in mind as we seek to resolve these issues.

Yesterday, I attended the launch of Finished at School, arranged by an organisation called Ambitious about Autism. This document poses the question:

“Where next for young people with autism?”.

It contains a number of case studies and poses questions about post-16 education for youngsters with learning difficulties, particularly with autism. Among its questions, it asks for a clear, legal right to educational support up to the age of 25 for young disabled people. It says that a funding system that gives young people and families more information, choice and support is needed, as is a cross-government focus on outcomes and destinations for young disabled people, and a further education workforce with the skills to support young people with autism to achieve their ambitions. Sarah Teather, the Minister of State responsible for these matters, was present and warmly welcomed the report yesterday. She said that the Government had every intention of living up to the ambitions set out in their Green Paper. All this is to be welcomed.

Before any noble Lord questions how my argument is relevant to the question before us now of exclusions, I will explain. In England, we have 66,000 young people with autism in the 16 to 25 age group. Yet only one young person in four with autism in that age cohort continues their education beyond school. That is why we have to do everything possible to reduce the huge level of SEN exclusions from our schools. For three-quarters of young people with autism, attending school until the age of 16 is the only education experience they will ever have. That is why we have to be so careful about exclusions.

On Amendment 15, as the noble Lord, Lord Low, pointed out, the draft guidance makes some welcome noises on this but the trigger for assessment is not as clear as this amendment would make it. On Amendments 24 and 25, it would appear that parents will be told that they can request a SEN expert of their own but we do not know how this will happen or what information parents will be entitled to receive in order to achieve that.

On Amendment 26, the guidance makes it clear that the SEN adviser should have appropriate training. However, like the noble Lord, Lord Low, I am still concerned that that training should be specific to the disability of the person with SEN being examined. On Amendment 27, the guidance is clear that it will not be the role of the SEN expert to undertake an assessment of needs, which is somewhat disappointing. Finally, on Amendment 28, it will be for the local authority to select the SEN experts for the parents to choose from.

There are still many questions to be asked and answered on the whole issue of the exclusion of youngsters with SEN. I look forward to the response from the Minister, who has demonstrated to me, and no doubt to others across the House, that he is listening. He certainly did that in Committee. I hope he listens to us now.