SEND Provision and Funding

Olivia Blake Excerpts

Thursday 11th January 2024 Commons Chamber

[Olivia Blake (Sheffield, Hallam) (Lab)]

I thank the right hon. Member for Haltemprice and Howden (Sir David Davis) for securing this important debate. I declare an interest as chair of the all-party parliamentary group for special educational needs and disabilities—everyone is very welcome to get involved in that—and as one of the few openly neurodiverse MPs: I have dyspraxia, dyslexia and ADHD.

Across the sector it is a truism that SEND provision in the UK is chronically underfunded. Others have already alluded to the f40 estimate of £4.6 billion. While additional funds delivered through the delivering better value programme and the additional £2.6 billion on capital funding are welcome, it is clear that they just do not meet the funds needed to stand still, let alone the additional demand for services, which is growing every year. Fixing the investment gap is critical to addressing the issue, but I want to make a plea that we cannot see this as simply a numbers problem.

We have seen that approach recently from Ministers, for example with the revelations reported in The Observer last October of a target to cut EHCPs by 20% in a contract to develop the delivering better value programme. It is not just about the target; it is about the method of getting there, through early intervention and through making our education system more inclusive. However, we should also be clear about the reality that, although hard-fought and hard-won, in a heavily under-resourced system, an EHCP is a lifeline for young people and families in advocating for the provision they need. For many SEND families, the 20% target will be a source of alarm.

Behind those numbers are families and young people who are struggling. The measure of a policy is not a falling statistic or the amount of money it saves, but the extent to which it addresses the needs of young people trying to access the education that is their right. I strongly believe that our approach to the issue should start with treating SEND young people and their families with the dignity and respect that all people deserve. That should mean a supporting hand from day one, but we lack the infrastructure for that kind of early intervention.

A survey last year by the Institute of Health Visiting found that only 37% of health visitors in England felt that they were delivering a good or outstanding service. That is too low. Only 6% were working within the recommended ratio of 250 children per visitor, and 28% —more than a quarter of the workforce—were servicing the needs of 750 children. That is a terrible statistic. The institute estimates a shortfall of 5,000 health visitors in England, and 48% say they will leave the profession in the next five years. We have also seen dramatic cuts in Sure Start services, with 1,416 centre closures since the onset of austerity in 2010. As an aside, the scale of those closures throws yesterday’s inadequate announcement of 75 new family hubs into stark relief.

As has been said, early identification of SEND also requires having trained early years staff who know what they are looking for. To most people, that seems like common sense. A recent survey by the Fair Foundation found that people overestimated early years pay by 47%. People value this workforce, but their pay does not value them. Nearly three quarters of the survey participants thought that people working in early years should be paid more, and I agree. We need to invest in the workforce charged with looking after our children and properly value the work they do, as well as training and upskilling them where necessary.

On all these points of early intervention—the crisis in the health visitor workforce, cuts to Sure Start and the undervaluing of early years staff, the lack of multi-sensory teaching workforce and speech and language therapists, and the difficulties accessing physio—we are moving in the wrong direction. We need more healthcare visitors, with visits on day one of a child’s life; we need more early years support for families and young people; and we need a professionalised early years workforce that knows how to identify the SEND needs of our children.

Those problems are systemic. They are also about how services integrate. It is no good identifying needs if there is not enough capacity to give a timely referral. In March 2023 the waiting list for speech and language therapy had gone up by 42% since 2021, from 51,000 to 73,000—and no wonder. Last year, the Royal College of Speech and Language Therapists found that almost one in four jobs were vacant across the UK. If we take ADHD, we know that the referral rates are going up, and there are some shocking statistics of people waiting up to three years for a referral—the wait is up to a decade in some adult services. We need to cut down the waiting times for all forms of assessment and diagnosis. To do that will require looking at those backlogs as we would any other backlog and taking seriously the staffing shortages we are suffering.

We should be promoting strength-based approaches to SEND. In the education system, we should be looking to create inclusive spaces where young people can truly be themselves. There is no good reason why children with SEND should not flourish, but that means rethinking how we approach behaviour in classrooms, training and supporting teachers to understand that all behaviour is a form of communication, not off-rolling young people because they do not fit into a certain box or just to cheat the figures. I will finish with the point that Ofsted should not be rating any school excellent if it does not have good-quality SEND provision.