Park Homes

Debate between Stephen Gilbert and Annette Brooke

Tuesday 13th May 2014 Westminster Hall

[Annette Brooke]

I thank my hon. Friend for her intervention. There seems to be a complex and opaque relationship between the pitch fee and the commission payment.

A third option, to scrap the commission on the sale of a park home for new agreements only without a limitation on a compensatory increase in pitch fees, received little support. If pitch fees increase further, I concede that there is a danger for residents on relatively low and often fixed incomes.

In 2012, the Select Committee on Communities and Local Government carried out an inquiry into the park homes industry and undoubtedly contributed to the 2013 Act. It concluded that site owners should continue to receive up to 10% commission from the sale of a park home. However, as well as some oral evidence, it relied heavily on the 2007 conclusions and on an earlier paper from 2002 when reaching its own conclusion. It is misleading to say that we have evidence from as recently as 2012 on the issue.

[Stephen Gilbert (St Austell and Newquay) (LD)]

I sat on the Communities and Local Government Committee and was part of that investigation. It is right that we concluded that any reduction in the 10% rate would lead to an increase in the pitch fees referred to by my hon. Friend the Member for Newton Abbot (Anne Marie Morris). Given that, we need to reconsider the issue and to have another debate. I commend the idea of my hon. Friend the Member for Mid Dorset and North Poole (Annette Brooke) on greater transparency, which should give home owners the confidence that money is being reinvested in site maintenance and upkeep.

Atos Work Capability Assessments

Debate between Stephen Gilbert and Annette Brooke

Thursday 17th January 2013 Commons Chamber

[Stephen Gilbert]

As I have said, and as I am sure the hon. Gentleman would acknowledge, the point is not the principle of conducting assessments but the practice—how they are rolled out and how millions of our constituents experience them. Constituents have told me that they find the process dehumanising and degrading and that they are often seen by people who are unqualified to make an assessment of their condition. We have to get the assessment process right. That is right for the individuals concerned, but it is also the decent, moral and humane thing to do.

I am particularly concerned about those with fluctuating conditions such as ME—myalgic encephalomyelitis, or chronic fatigue syndrome—and those with lifelong degenerative conditions, who will never recover from the illness from which they are suffering but who continue to be called in for repeated assessments. The principle is the right one; the practice, however, is failing many millions of the most vulnerable people across the country. Although the coalition has made welcome efforts to get right a system that it inherited from the last Government, much more still needs to be done to ensure that we are doing things in a humane way.

[Annette Brooke (Mid Dorset and North Poole) (LD)]

Does my hon. Friend agree that most people were extremely pleased that Professor Harrington convened his working group to look at the descriptors for fluctuating conditions? However, whatever has happened has not solved the problem for people with ME, multiple sclerosis or mental health conditions. It is therefore imperative that the DWP get on with this and make the system work for those people.

[Stephen Gilbert]

I could not have put it better. This is not about the principle of assessments; it is about how they are conducted in practice. We owe it to some of the most vulnerable people across our country to ensure that we get this right.

Education Psychology

Debate between Stephen Gilbert and Annette Brooke

Monday 18th October 2010 Commons Chamber

[Annette Brooke (Mid Dorset and North Poole) (LD)]

I have taken an interest over a long time in the provision of education psychology services, as I am very much aware that long waiting times for assessment can have an impact on the rest of a child’s life. I am delighted that the Government are undertaking a review into special educational needs, but deeply concerned that the training of educational psychologists appears to have been put on hold while the review takes place. I shall return to this point in more detail later, but emphasise now that educational psychologists will be needed to help to deliver the Government’s agenda to improve educational outcomes for children with special educational needs and to assist with early intervention—another area being reviewed, which again I wholeheartedly applaud.

Clearly, educational psychologists have a crucial role to play. They use evidence-based psychology to help children make the most of learning opportunities in schools. They solve educational social problems and problems arising from children’s differing needs through the application of psychology. They work not only with a proportion of the school and pre-school population, but also more widely with groups of parents and pupils. Examples of differing needs include visual and hearing impairments, cerebral palsy, autism, dyspraxia, dyslexia, social and emotional difficulties, and many more.

Educational psychologists play a key part in helping to shape how educational settings approach a vast range of education issues through statutory and non-statutory work, including on curriculum development, generalised and complex special educational needs, support for the gifted and talented, behaviour management, and delivery of early-years provision. They hold a recognised qualification in educational psychology—previously a masters degree and now a doctorate—and must be registered with the Health Professions Council. The benefits that they bring include knowledge of child development, which is all important because so many teachers go through training without much emphasis on that, although I know that that is being remedied. They provide early diagnosis and intervention, which is particularly important in the context of conditions such as autism, both for children who need ongoing assistance at school and at home, as well as for high-need children, particularly those from disadvantaged backgrounds. They also provide diagnostic advice and support. Understanding a child’s needs and providing a tailored support package to assist them is crucial to their development. A key role of educational psychologists is to advise and support teachers who would otherwise need to perform that diagnostic role.

Educational psychologists are responsive to local need. They work across the full range of educational settings and are well positioned in local authorities to identify and analyse trends across localities, and to implement strategies to address local need accordingly. They conduct a wide range of interventions, including help with emergency planning, critical incident support, support for fostering and adoption, advice on adapting curriculum and buildings for disability, and reviewing and monitoring children who are placed out of authority and within independent schools. Educational psychologists also play a crucial role in engaging parents and liaising between them and teachers to help to improve joined-up learning and developmental and well-being outcomes for children, not only in educational settings, but at home.

According to data from the Children’s Workforce Development Council, there are approximately 2,200 practising educational psychologists in England and Wales. CWDC’s 2009 work force planning exercise showed that approximately 120 new entrants to the profession are required annually to maintain a similar-sized work force and to meet current local authority demand.

The age profile of the profession is such that a sizable number of educational psychologists are approaching retirement. There is a national shortage and significant numbers of educational psychology services are carrying vacant posts. All the graduates from the training courses have found employment. In a recent parliamentary answer to me the Minister said that about 120 educational psychologists were expected to complete their training in both 2011 and 2012. That sounds encouraging, but my concerns are not allayed.

In 2006, the training changed from a one-year masters course to a three-year doctorate to acknowledge the increasing complexities within which educational psychologists work—a one-year course was inadequate to provide an appropriate level of training. That change also brought training in line with that of other professional psychologists across the UK and Europe.

In the past, funding for educational psychology training was administered by the Office of the Deputy Prime Minister, which oversaw the top slice of funds to the Local Government Association, which distributed fees to higher education institutions and salaries to trainees through local authorities. Now the CWDC oversees the funding of training. A decision was made at Government level to cease the top slice, and the sum of money previously reserved for training was distributed among the 152 local authorities, which would then subscribe to training for educational psychologists. The money collected by the CWDC would pay for the higher education institution fees and also a bursary for the trainees during the first year of their training. It is greatly feared that the anticipated Government cuts will put local authorities under massive financial pressure, and that local authorities will therefore find it much harder to fund educational psychologists, or be less willing to do so. In the current climate, what guarantee is there that those educational psychologists who, in accordance with the Minister’s parliamentary answer, are expected to complete their courses in 2011 and 2012 will be able to do so?

Compounding this problem, according to the CWDC website the recruitment of educational psychologist trainees for the next academic intake has been frozen on the instruction of the Minister’s own Department.

[Stephen Gilbert (St Austell and Newquay) (LD)]

I congratulate my hon. Friend on securing this debate on such an important subject. Does she share my concern that the freeze on the training of educational psychologists from 2011 onwards risks undermining a key component of education in our country and the facilities that are in place to support it, all of which go towards ensuring that every child matters and every pupil is given the best opportunity for their own advancement? Does she also agree that the Government need to do more to ensure that training is in place for the educational psychologists of the future?

[Annette Brooke]

That is a very valid point. If the freeze is for just one year, for example, there will be a shortfall in the number of educational psychologists of at least 120. No guarantees are to be made regarding future provision and funding until the Green Paper is published. The website says:

“As such the recruitment process for the 2011/2012 cohort is on hold until we have further information.”

I hope that the Minister will be able to give us some further information on that.

With existing trainees possibly finding that they will not be funded for the remaining part of their courses and the freeze on the recruitment process for 2011 and 2012, there is an immediate and real danger that the university courses will be without a new cohort of trainees for 2011 or the funding that they have depended on from local authorities, and they will simply be unable to continue to function. Students who are part way through their doctorate training may not be able to complete it, and significantly fewer, if any, new educational psychologists will be qualifying and entering the work force. That will be the case in a context where the Government have made a commitment to ensuring prompt access to high-quality specialist assessment and specialist provision. Those two conflicting aspects of this situation must be reconciled.