Children with Special Educational Needs

Sarah Teather Excerpts

Wednesday 30th March 2011 Westminster Hall

[The Minister of State, Department for Education (Sarah Teather)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Brady; I think it is the first time I have been able to do so. I begin by congratulating the hon. Member for Vale of Glamorgan (Alun Cairns) on securing the debate. I am grateful to have this opportunity so soon after we published the Green Paper. It is useful to learn what hon. Members think and hear the feedback from their constituencies. The hon. Gentleman said he hoped there would be other opportunities; I do, too. As hon. Members are able to go into their constituencies and use the consultation to talk to their local groups, they will have the opportunity to bring that feedback to the House, so that we can discuss it.

I am aware that the hon. Gentleman has a long-standing interest in the subject. He also mentioned his wife; that is a real power partnership. We are grateful for the expertise he and other hon. Members brought to a good-quality debate—Members including the hon. Member for Washington and Sunderland West (Mrs Hodgson), who spoke of her experience of battling to get support for her child.

As hon. Members will be aware, the core of the reform that we are trying to bring to the system is quite radical, and it will take time to bed down and to get it right. Unfortunately, I am not able to promise that overnight we will be able to transform the experience radically for every family who has a disabled child or one with special educational needs. In some of the things that we are doing, it will take time to change attitudes and mindsets. That is why we are taking the approach of using pilots—so that we can begin to roll them out and learn from the experience.

Core to the reform is the change to a nought-to-25 system that is more continuous. I want the system to be more focused on outcomes, rather than focusing just on inputs. A lot of the tension arises partly because people get hung up on the question, “How many hours?”, rather than thinking about where we want the child and family to be in 12 months’ time. We should have that type of conversation from the outset. We should look at the child and family and ask: what are the realistic goals? Where do we want to be next year? What are the realistic goals, long term? We should then put in place the right kind of support to get children and families into that position for the long term.

[Alun Cairns]

I recognise the focus on outcomes, but does the Minister also recognise that parents can only guarantee the inputs to deliver the outcomes through a statement of special educational needs? Of course, it will be called something different and will have a slightly different form if the Green Paper becomes a White Paper. As I tried to highlight, if a therapist is sick or on maternity leave, provision is rarely replaced during that period. We will not achieve the outcomes unless there is a guarantee of the inputs.

[Sarah Teather]

I will come to the specifics of the statementing process. The hon. Gentleman’s contribution on that was helpful. It is about getting the detail right and ensuring that the system works.

I have mentioned that I want a nought-to-25 process, and that it should be more outcomes-focused. It also needs to be a joint assessment process. My hon. Friend the Member for North Cornwall (Dan Rogerson) said that the current system was too costly, often because people go through it several times—something that the hon. Member for Vale of Glamorgan also mentioned. It is very frustrating for families if they have to go through multiple assessments, telling the same story over and over again to professionals. That wastes their time and the professionals’ time. When I have listened to families speaking about their experience, I have been struck by how traumatic it is; they relive the grief they experienced when they first had the diagnosis of the disability or special educational need. Every time they tell the story, they are effectively reliving that initial trauma. When that is combined with the frustration of feeling that nobody is listening to them, it is incredibly stressful for families.

We have to streamline the assessment process, so that families go through fewer hoops, we come up with one plan into which everybody is tied, and people know who is responsible for paying for what, rather than there being an endless fight over where that responsibility sits in different sections of the statement. That picks up the point on which the hon. Member for Vale of Glamorgan ended his contribution. At the moment, unfortunately, one needs to be highly articulate and, too often, financially able, in order to get the best out of the system. That is simply not good enough. We have to make the system simpler and more straightforward, so that every family can get what their child deserves: the best possible support and care.

As a number of hon. Members have said, the current system is cumbersome, costly and inconsistent. The first thing we have tried to do is take some of the adversarial nature out of the process. Again, I cannot promise that we will never have tension between families and services providing for their child; that is not realistic. However, there is a lot we can do to reduce that, so that it does not come immediately, and so that we change the nature of the conversation from the outset.

We want to begin with the idea of a local offer, so that when someone first encounters the local authority or health service, they are not told: “Prove that you need help.” Local services should be coming to parents and saying, “This is what we normally provide; now let’s have the discussion about how we tailor that, and what we need to do for you in your situation.” That should change the relationship from the beginning. That again was a point made by the hon. Member for Vale of Glamorgan. The attempt to get people to talk at the end of the process can be unsuccessful if trust broke down right at the beginning. That was highlighted for us by the Council for Disabled Children, which spoke passionately about the need for a local offer. In areas where that has been developed, it has changed the relationship from the beginning. That has been much more fruitful; even if parents decide to go all the way through the special educational needs and disability tribunal, the nature of the conversation can be much better from the beginning.

Mainstream schools need to be clearer with families about what they would normally provide for children with a range of learning difficulties, disabilities or additional needs. At the moment, there is great inconsistency. It can be difficult for parents to work out whether their child’s needs are greater than those normally provided for in a school—the legal definition of special educational needs. As a consequence, local authorities complain that the tribunal will often make inconsistent decisions about whether a statement is required. It is not in anyone’s interest for all that to be so cloak-and-dagger. Much more can be clearer from the beginning.

The hon. Member for Vale of Glamorgan said that a lot of the detail did not work. He mentioned the tension between outcomes and incomes-focused criteria. I recognise his point, but if we begin with outcomes, it changes the nature of the discussion. We sometimes hear that families will cling to a statement that may not be suitable for their child’s needs, as those needs have changed. That is not in the interests of the family. If we can focus more on the outcomes and the support that we need to provide for a family as we move to an agreed set of goals, families are less likely to cling to unsuitable provision, and more likely to be willing to accept changes that might be right for their child. Focusing on outcomes rather than inputs requires a huge change of mindset. As I said earlier, of all the things that we are trying to do, that will probably take the longest to bed down.

My hon. Friend the Member for North Cornwall said that going around the loop repeatedly is often expensive. If we do not get children the support that they need early enough, that is also expensive; a greater, more serious intervention might be needed later. Many of the families that we spoke to, and the voluntary organisations that we worked with when drawing up the Green Paper, told us that parents use the expensive independent school not always for the education that it provides, but often because it has therapists on tap, particularly speech and language therapists. As a result of the frustration of not being able to get speech and language therapy through other means, some parents will push all the way through the tribunal for the expensive independent provision—but that, of course, comes out of the local authority’s budget, and not the health service budget. In the end, there is no incentive for local services to work together, or to provide a plan that should be paid for jointly. There would be significantly less cost to the public purse in the long term if we could get it right from the beginning.

My hon. Friend the Member for Vale of Glamorgan spoke about delays in the system. It is clearly ridiculous for small children to have to wait six months for the necessary support, because they are at a critical period in their development. Anything that we can do to speed up that process is important. I hope that the joint process, the single assessment process, will remove some of the delays. Many delays are the result of local authorities having to co-ordinate the expertise of various professionals; that is particularly so with professional input on health.

One of our first priorities, even before we get to the joint process, is the statementing process; we want people to contribute sooner, more quickly, more rapidly and more efficiently. It is not good for families to have to wait. The nub of what we are doing is reducing delay in the short term. As for the longer term, I hope that the pilots will show that having one process speeds things up. That is a key objective in getting people to work together.

[Alun Cairns]

The Minister rightly focuses on the cut proposed in the Green Paper from 26 weeks to 20 weeks. I referred in my speech to a delay in a tribunal taking place; it took from 10 August last year until mid-January for the case to come to the tribunal. That was far longer than it took to get the published statement. We should not forget that a case could be taken to tribunal twice—once regarding the statutory assessment, and once regarding the statement. What consideration has the Minister given to that? It would be a significant step forward if that wait was curtailed to a reasonable length.

[Sarah Teather]

The hon. Gentleman need not panic; I wrote everything down. I may not be able to cover every point that he raised as I cannot scribble that quickly, but he raises the very point that I wanted to deal with next.

I turn first, however, to what the hon. Gentleman said about mediation; he asked whether it would introduce extra delay. That is absolutely not the intention. When we roll it out, we want to make it clear to local authorities that the addition of mediation should not delay the process of going to the tribunal. The quality of conversation ought to be better from the outset, so I hope that the process will be more successful.

The other key point to make about mediation is that it needs to be high-quality. If people are simply going through the motions, it will add extra frustration for everyone concerned. In the Green Paper, we point to some examples of good practice, particularly in the west midlands. Independent mediation there has made a real difference to the solutions that parents are being given, and people have not had to go through the tribunal process. Parents were happier because they had much better conversations with local providers.

I turn to tribunal delays. I was concerned to hear of the example given by the hon. Gentleman. The tribunal in England aims to hear cases within 22 weeks of the appeal being registered. We regularly meet the tribunal at an official level and raise the matter with it, but we will raise the specific point that the hon. Gentleman makes. It would help to know whether the case was in England or Wales.

[Alun Cairns]

It was in England.

[Sarah Teather]

That is helpful. We will raise that case with the tribunal. Personal budgets were alluded to by a number of Members, particularly the hon. Member for Harlow (Robert Halfon). I hope that they will cut some of the frustration for families. They are a choice, not an obligation; families will not be obliged to take up personal budgets. We realise that not every family will want to do so, but some will believe that they would be better able to make choices about how family life was run if they had the freedom to decide how to care for their child. That needs to be trialled. Some small-scale pilots have been run for disabled children in recent years with some elements of the health budget, and we will build on that.

In the Green Paper, we are consulting on what should be included in the scheme. One suggestion is that we include school transport, which was mentioned by the hon. Member for Harlow. I hope that will give families more freedom to decide which school their children could attend. The obvious thing to include in personal budgets is key equipment such as speech and language aids, which were mentioned earlier, and wheelchairs. I have experience of this as a constituency MP, and I know from being involved with the Green Paper that delays in the provision of wheelchairs are unfortunately extremely common. Indeed, the wait can sometimes be so long that children have grown out of the wheelchair by the time it arrives. That is utterly ridiculous. It is a waste of public money, and the impact on the child can be considerable. Indeed, one child in my constituency was not able to attend school while waiting for a new wheelchair because the old one was the wrong size and was giving him sores. That is not good enough.

Another obvious candidate for a personal budget is therapy, particularly speech and language therapy. That raises the subject of adequate provision, which was mentioned by the hon. Member for Harlow. I have no doubt that the joint strategic needs assessment process needs to be better at picking up needs, from the ground upwards. The Green Paper commits the Department of Health to ensuring that the needs assessment is done in a way that responds to the needs of families with disabled children in the area. I hope that that deals with the point raised by the hon. Gentleman.

[Dan Rogerson]

That point is crucial, and it could represent a huge step forward. We are obviously focusing on younger people, and my experience as a constituency MP is that direct payment with personal budgeting has worked for social care; there is often an element of health care as well, but at the moment that cannot be provided through primary care trusts with a direct payment model. That is incredibly frustrating, and it is a barrier to getting a package that works for families. I have had that experience with families who are caring for older people, and I believe that lessons can be learned right the way across.

[Sarah Teather]

Absolutely. We intend rolling that out as a legal entitlement, and that will bite on local services. Local authorities are going to have to budget, rather than agreeing to put something in a plan and then dodging the responsibility for paying for it. If parents are legally entitled to request provision—local services will not know which parents will request it—local services will have to budget for that. We expect that services will be provided on the ground, but we need to test the system with pilots to ensure that there is a bite on all services. We want to ensure that all families get the services that they have been promised, and do not find themselves in the same position as before, where something would be written in section 3 or 5 of a statement but not be provided by local health services.

My hon. Friend the Member for Ceredigion (Mr Williams) has spoken on a number of occasions about the frustration of teachers. He said that it is not only parents who are frustrated; teachers often feel inadequately prepared to work with children with a range of additional specialist needs. However, the hon. Member for Washington and Sunderland West told us that one inspirational teacher made the difference for her child. That is the point. We hear many fantastic examples of professionals who lead practice, but even one professional who believes in a child and who takes responsibility can make such a difference. They can be teachers or other professionals with whom the family come into contact. That kind of practice needs to be much more common, which is why we propose improving initial teacher training. We will use both special and mainstream schools for teaching purposes to ensure that professionals learn from the good practice of others. We will also focus on continuing professional development, using both online specialist material, some of which was launched last week, and scholarship funds to ensure that teachers and teaching assistants have access to funds to gain a greater specialism.

The point about teaching assistants is new; we have a new way of thinking about their role. As many families know, teaching assistants often have more experience than the classroom teacher of working with children with additional needs. By giving them an opportunity to develop their career, we may well bring to the teaching profession many more individuals who have a real background, interest and focus on this subject.

Let me touch on the issue of choice, to which the hon. Member for Washington and Sunderland West and my hon. Friend the Member for North Cornwall referred. The point about trying to reverse the bias is exactly about choice. If there is currently a bias in one direction or another, that is not about choice. The focus of our Green Paper is on improving choice for families, so that they can make decisions about what is best for their child. Too often, however, it ends up being Hobson’s choice, because they feel that the mainstream school does not have the capability to support their child. That is why we want a focus on teacher training and the Achievement for All pilot.

I want to focus on Achievement for All and to pick up the point about over-diagnosis raised by the hon. Member for South Antrim (Dr McCrea). Achievement for All is a pilot programme that ran in 10 local authorities and 450 schools. Schools and parents found that it substantially increased the attainment of children in schools. That was true in special schools, in which children might have highly complex needs and a statement, and in mainstream schools, in which children might be on school action or school action plus. The improvement in attainment stemmed from the quality of the interaction between the school and parents, and between teachers and the child.

Under the pilot, there is a greater focus on setting goals, on monitoring the attainment of those goals and on sharing information with families and making sure that they are involved in their child’s attainment. Head teachers said that when they used the programme it changed their mindset; it was about not money, but attitude. That attitude affected not just the children with whom teachers were working on the SEN register, but all the children in the school who had additional needs.

Some Members implied that we were arbitrarily taking children off the SEN register. Though the powers of Government are great, they are not great enough to mandate the press to report what we say accurately. Unfortunately, the press like to write about numbers. They multiplied our figures and came up with a large number that may or may not be our target. I was very clear with them at the press briefing, as I have been clear with them since, that the Government do not have a target for the number of children they want off the SEN register. What we want is schools to work with children to ensure they fulfil their potential.

When Achievement for All was rolled out in some schools, it was found that the increase in attainment was so great that children no longer needed to be on the SEN register. Surely that should be welcomed by everybody. This is not about arbitrarily reducing numbers.

[Mrs Hodgson]

I am listening with great interest to the Minister. She has clarified many of the points that have been raised. The media may have come to their conclusions because they felt that the figure of 21% of children being diagnosed with SEN was too high. I definitely read that in the media.

[Sarah Teather]

Unfortunately, I am not in control of what the media write. Ofsted said that too many children are diagnosed with special educational needs; it said the number could be as high as one in four. Let me repeat that we are not setting a target for the number of children we want off the SEN register.

We have changed the school action and school action plus criteria because schools said that they were bureaucratic and not very helpful. At the start of this debate, there was an exchange about whether there is a financial incentive for schools to use school action and school action plus. There is no financial incentive, because in most cases the funds are already delegated to schools. We have got rid of contextual value added, which Ofsted said was an incentive, in terms of league tables. The issue is much more complex. Teachers will sometimes label children as having SEN because they think that that is the right thing to do; we should not always assume malicious motives. Teachers believe that the right thing to do is to label a child as having SEN, whereas what they probably need to do is work closely with that child, raise their attainment, and work out what the barriers are that are preventing them from moving forward.

It is important to identify need at an early stage. This morning, Dame Clare Tickell launched her report on the review of the early years foundation stage. It will take us some time to go through the detail of her recommendations, but one of the things that she has picked up—this was also picked up in our Green Paper and by the hon. Member for Nottingham North (Mr Allen) in his review a few months ago—was whether we could make better use of the two-and-a-half-year-old check and link it with the early years foundation stage, so that we pick up need at an early age. That is particularly important for speech and language issues. Dame Clare has recommended that the new foundation building blocks of the EYFS be focused particularly on communication needs, personal, emotional and social development, and physical development. I hope that the suggestion will help improve the system for professionals working in early years.

[Robert Halfon]

I realise that there is very little time left. Will the Minister comment on my remarks about the blue badge issue?

[Sarah Teather]

I was concerned to hear the hon. Gentleman’s point about the particular difficulties that families with autism face. Families with a disabled child face complicated and diverse barriers to living a normal life, and that is an issue that should not be addressed by the Department for Education alone. I will take up his point with the Department for Communities and Local Government.

In the last couple of minutes that I have left, let me pick up on as many points as I can. The Department of Health is considering the future training and development of speech and language therapists as part of its wider consultation on the work force.

Exclusions were referred to by a number of hon. Members. The proposals laid out in the Education Bill and in the schools White Paper will substantially improve the situation for vulnerable young people because it will make schools responsible for what happens to them after they leave that school. The other proposal that we have put in our Green Paper is that if a child’s behaviour is not responding to normal behavioural management techniques, or if they are being repeatedly excluded on a short-term basis, schools should, as a matter of course, do some kind of multi-agency assessment, which could be done through the common assessment framework. They should use their local multi-agency assessment process as a system for questioning why a child’s behaviour is out of control. I hope that will reduce the number of children who end up being excluded. More importantly, we need to ensure that we put in place the right kind of support for a child, whether it is helping with a situation in their family, or with a mental health problem.

I thought that I would have loads of time to cover all the points, but that is clearly not the case. There is a long consultation period now of four months, and a long period of implementation. I am grateful to hon. Members for their points and I will ensure that they are fed into our formal consultation process. I encourage hon. Members to engage with their local parents’ forums and groups to ensure that, when we respond to the consultation, we really take into account what families and children want. It is important that we get this right because the care of those children really matters.