Children with Autism (Education)

Steve McCabe Excerpts

Thursday 17th July 2014 Commons Chamber

[Steve McCabe (Birmingham, Selly Oak) (Lab)]

I think this is my third meeting with the Minister today. I did not appreciate when we first met at a certain by-election some years ago that our paths were destined to cross quite so often, but it is always a pleasure to see him.

Let me begin by congratulating the hon. Member for Burnley (Gordon Birtwistle) on securing this debate, which is timely on a day when we have just agreed a new draft special educational needs and disability code of practice. He is right to be concerned about the schooling provision for children with autism. I am advised that there are at least 70,000 children with autism living in England, and they deserve access to high quality, full-time education. The hon. Gentleman’s description of the problems his constituents face, particularly Chloe, in obtaining proper assessments and appropriate schooling are sadly all too familiar—a point reinforced by my hon. Friend the Member for Huddersfield (Mr Sheerman), who obviously has a great deal of experience in this area. Early diagnosis is crucial and will become one of the first tests of the Children and Families Act 2014. Will it improve early identification and diagnosis of a child’s difficulties and will the child’s needs be properly considered? As I understand it, it is not for a local authority to select the school; rather, it is the job of the local authority to offer and engage with a range of provision, so that a child can attend the school best suited to their needs.

[Mark Hendrick]

As I said in my speech, Lancashire county council has 23 such schools. It was in no way indicating any individual school, but did offer a number of schools in several cases.

[Steve McCabe]

I note that my hon. Friend has made that point.

Research by Ambitious about Autism has found that about 40% of children with autism have been excluded from school on at least one occasion without any valid reason being offered. Many are excluded much more often, of course, and some schools appear to operate a policy of informal exclusion, which makes it difficult for any of us to form an accurate picture of what exactly is happening. We do know that the practice is illegal. I acknowledge the Government’s work in funding exclusion advisers, with their grant to the National Autistic Society. I hope that will help us address the problem of those exclusions.

As the Minister will know, Ambitious about Autism is currently campaigning for every school to have access to an autism specialist teacher. We should try to meet that objective because I am certain that exclusions often result from staff who genuinely do not know what is required of them and feel that they are ill equipped to cope with an autistic child’s particular needs. Obviously, the special educational needs co-ordinator is the key figure in the school, charged with ensuring that appropriate support and assistance is made available to every child with a special need, whether or not they are subject to a statement or an education health and care plan.

[Bob Stewart (Beckenham) (Con)]

I would be surprised if any child with special needs was excluded from school without someone with specialist knowledge having had a look at them. I am assuming that that is what happened. Perhaps the Minister will have an answer.

[Steve McCabe]

The point is that informal exclusions are not notified or recorded, so the issue is virtually impenetrable. That should be addressed. As I said, to be fair to the Government, they have funded a grant for exclusion advisers who we all hope will help to make progress.

I was talking about SENCOs. At present, the Department for Education does not know how many SENCOs there are across the country, or how many teachers have particular additional skills designed to support autistic children. It might be helpful if we carried out some kind of audit so that we could at least begin to estimate the level of need and the gaps in existing provision.

In theory, a SENCO is involved in the school’s use of the pupil premium for SEN children, although there appear to be no clear guidelines on the extent of that involvement or on how a school secures additional funding from a local authority on the basis of a child’s extensive needs or of having a particularly large number of children with special needs. In fact, it is often suggested that some mainstream schools seek to deter the parents of special needs children, and autistic children in particular, because they struggle to secure additional funding and are likely to be penalised by Ofsted for a decline in results as a consequence of their special needs children, rather than acknowledged for their efforts in supporting them. I am not defending any school’s attempt to exclude or reject children, but we have to acknowledge that how the system is currently loaded does not make things easy for a great number of schools.

When we were dealing with the code of practice, the Minister spoke about how he saw the local offer as a powerful means of highlighting how well a local authority was doing in catering for children with special needs. I do not want to talk about what Lancashire or any other local authority has or has not done, as, frankly, I do not have the detail to hand. However, I acknowledge that the contribution of my hon. Friend the Member for Preston (Mark Hendrick) has provided us with a broader picture of the situation in Lancashire.

[Julie Hilling (Bolton West) (Lab)]

Does my hon. Friend agree that one difficulty we face is the shortage of educational psychologists, making it hard to get timely appointments to diagnose young people and that, sadly, the cuts have made the situation even more difficult?

[Steve McCabe]

The real issue is equity of access. People seem to have access to educational psychologists in some parts of the country, whereas there are phenomenal waiting periods in others. Some services claim that they are so overstretched as to be at breaking-point. That is my analysis of what is happening.

To return to the local offer, my view is that it could provide one opportunity for local authorities and specialist providers to co-operate so that every staff member in every mainstream school has access to the support, information, guidance and counselling they might require to help them maintain an autistic child at school. I recently had the opportunity to visit the Treehouse school at the Pears National Centre for Autism Education in London. That provides an example of what can be done to help educate people with autism and to support other schools in the immediate vicinity. It is, of course, a labour-intensive effort, but surely the very term “special needs” implies something more than just the average in mainstream. We have to accept that this will always be a resource issue. Irrespective of the amount of money available, there will always be competition for such resources.

I want to acknowledge that it is not just school-age provision with which we need to concern ourselves, especially when the new Act places obligations to assist people from the age of nought to 25. There is a dearth of decent facilities for children after the age of 16. Let me mention one new college I visited: the Lindridge Trinity specialist college in Sutton Coldfield, which was set up by parents who recognised that there was no provision in their area for their autistic children beyond the age of 16. Even if parents succeed in finding the school that best suits their child’s needs, getting them the education that best addresses the problem and puts them on the best path for the future, they run the risk that once their children reach 16, they simply fall off the cliff, with nothing available for them. As well as trying to address the concerns raised by the hon. Member for Burnley, we need to think further ahead in terms of what the Act requires, particularly in respect of the provision to carry people through to the age of 25.

I congratulate once again the hon. Member for Burnley and other Members who have contributed to the debate. It seems to me that autistic children deserve a full educational opportunity. With the right structure, care and support, they are capable of so much more; it is up to us in this place to make sure that they do not miss out.