Special Educational Needs

Vicky Ford Excerpts

Wednesday 21st April 2021 Westminster Hall

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Education (Vicky Ford)]

It is always a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Sir Edward. I start by joining others in congratulating the hon. Member for Slough (Mr Dhesi) on securing this important debate. I am grateful for the opportunity to discuss this important topic of how we care for our children with special educational needs and disabilities. The Government are absolutely dedicated to supporting children with special educational needs and disabilities, and their families. Our ambition for them is the same as it is for every child and young person, which is to ensure that they have access to a world-class education that sets them up for life.

The covid-19 pandemic has been extremely challenging for many families of children and young people with SEND. That is why throughout this very difficult pandemic, including during periods of national restrictions, we asked schools and colleges to remain open for those with education, health and care plans, because we know that those pupils, students and their families can be disproportionately impacted by being out of education.

I am extremely proud that we have kept our schools and colleges open for those most vulnerable children. We were one of the very few countries in the world to do so during the first lockdown. I recognise that in that first lockdown, attendance in many cases was quite low, because people were concerned about those vulnerable children, who often have other underlying health conditions. We did not know very much at that time about the impact of the virus on children.

By the end of the most recent lockdown, 99% of special schools were open and about 46%—that is about half—of children with EHCPs were attending towards the end. In fact, 58% or nearly two out of three children with EHCPs in mainstream primary schools were attending.

Throughout the pandemic, I have had very many meetings with stakeholders and have listened carefully to feedback from organisations such as the Council for Disabled Children and home care organisations, from young people themselves and from their families. I have sent many open letters to families and those who support them to answer their questions and to give them guidance and updates.

I also made many virtual visits to special schools and colleges. Those have been invaluable, especially the visits I made last autumn term to many special schools in areas with high covid rates. People might remember that schools were expected to be open, but in some areas covid was high. Our special schools across the country are absolutely committed to ensuring that children and families continue to receive high-quality education and support. I am extremely grateful for all that they are doing and I am deeply inspired by their work.

Support has to go beyond education, however, and I am acutely aware of the pressures on families. That is why we prioritise respite care. Alongside that, we provided £40.8 million for the family fund last year, which supported more than 90,000 families on low incomes who were raising children with disabilities or serious illnesses. That included £13.5 million to respond to needs arising from the outbreak. It provided items such as specialist toys, IT and other elements of equipment.

When children are not able to attend face to face, they should still receive remote education. To support that, we invested nearly £5 million in the Oak National Academy, which included funding to provide the specialist content for pupils with SEND. We also founded the National Star College to provide specialist training for teachers, leaders and SENCOs—special educational needs co-ordinators—on providing remote education for pupils with SEND.

We have been clear that where children and young people with an EHC plan need health provision, educational settings should work collaboratively with local authorities and health providers to agree the appropriate support. We made it clear that therapists and other professionals may continue to visit schools and colleges to provide that. Indeed, yesterday I met the Royal College of Occupational Therapists and the Royal College of Speech and Language Therapists to underlie how important it is that children get those therapies.

Despite all our efforts, many children and young people with SEND will be negatively impacted by the pandemic, and our focus has to be on supporting them in our recovery. Sir Kevan Collins, who has great experience in the SEND sector, as well as in many other areas of education, has been appointed as the education recovery commissioner, and he is considering how we can effectively target resources and support for those in the greatest need.

Sir Kevan is also looking at transitions, which the hon. Member for Reading East (Matt Rodda) mentioned. I would be happy to meet the hon. Gentleman to discuss that issue, but we may need to wait until after the court case. It is an issue that I shall be looking at closely. One clever thing that we did during the pandemic was to put in a special transition fund for year 11 students in alternative provision. Many young people in alternative provision have special educational needs, and that helped to support them on their journey into further education colleges last year. It was a great success. Transition is an issue that I am always interested in.

Vulnerable children are at the heart of our work in the Department for Education. The £650 million catch-up premium that we announced last June was weighted to give extra support to those in special schools. There is three times more support per pupil in special schools than in mainstream schools. That was supplemented by the additional £320 million recovery premium that we announced in March, which is helping schools to make up for lost teaching time. Head teachers decide how that premium is spent. They can prioritise particular pupils, including children with SEND.

Similarly, the recently expanded national tutoring programme provides access to high-quality tuition for disadvantaged and vulnerable children and young people, and 26 of the 33 providers that we have approved to provide the tutoring can provide tutoring for SEND. That includes the 16 to 19 tuition fund, for the support of students. Furthermore, the early language and literacy catch-up programme will benefit all children, including those with SEND. More than 40% of the primary schools in the country have signed up to the language and literacy programme.

The long summer break can bring extra pressures on families, and to address that we have expanded the holiday activities and food programme, which has provided healthy food and enriching activities to disadvantaged children since 2018. This year it will cover the Easter, summer and Christmas school holidays at a cost of up to £220 million and will be available to children across England. We are working to ensure that the programme is fully inclusive and accessible. The £200 million summer school funding will be available to all secondary schools, including specialist settings, to deliver face-to-face summer schools. Schools will be able to target what they provide based on pupils’ needs, enabling them to tailor support for those with SEND.

The hon. Member for Jarrow (Kate Osborne) mentioned mental health, as did some other Members. It is important, because children and young people will succeed only if their physical and mental wellbeing is prioritised, so we recently announced another £79 million boost to children’s and young people’s mental health support, including through further roll-out of mental health support teams. Our wellbeing for education return programme has provided training and resources to help school staff across England to respond to the wellbeing and mental health needs of pupils at this time. On top of that, we remain committed to our joint Green Paper delivery programme on mental health.

Many Members have spoken about funding, and we recognise that support for SEND has to be underpinned by the necessary funding. In addition to the recovery funding, we are investing significantly in special needs education. An additional £730 million is going into high-needs funding in this financial year. That comes on top of the extra £780 million that we provided last year, which means that in two years the high-needs budget will have grown by more than £1.5 billion and increased by nearly a quarter. We are also investing another £300 million of capital funding this year in new places for children and young people with SEND, or those who need alternative provision.

It might be worth telling hon. Members how those funding numbers affect their constituencies. In Slough, the funding for high needs has increased to £28 million—a 16% increase over last year and this. There are also 16% increases in Bedford, Reading, Richmond and Camden. Funding in East Suffolk and Norfolk is increasing by about 22%, in Luton by 23% and in South Tyneside by about 26%. In Liverpool, funding was increased by 17% last year and will be increased by a further 12% this year.

As the hon. Member for Twickenham (Munira Wilson) mentioned, we have been working closely with Richmond Council on safety valve funding, and I will pass her thanks on to the team at the Department for Education, who always work closely with councils that are struggling in this area. Luton also received almost another three quarters of a million pounds to improve children’s social care.

We know that practical support for local SEND services is really important. This year we are putting £42 million into projects to support children and young people with SEND, ensuring that organisations across the country continue their work to strengthen local area performance, and supporting families and providing practical support to schools and colleges. Crucially, that funding will help to strengthen the participation of parents and young people, ensuring that they have a voice in designing SEND policies and services as well as access to high-quality information and support.

The hon. Member for Liverpool, West Derby (Ian Byrne) mentioned autism. My Department is working closely with the Department of Health and Social Care to develop a refreshed cross-Government autism strategy. Progress has been made on autism over the years, but there are challenges and priorities for reducing inequalities, enabling autistic people of all ages to have the same opportunities as everyone else to lead happy, healthy and fulfilling lives. The refreshed autism strategy will, subject to the pressures of the pandemic, be published this spring—that is our aim.

The hon. Member for Slough mentioned local issues that he had seen. Slough Borough Council is Labour-run, and sadly it has a long history of failing children. Its children’s services were rated as inadequate by Ofsted back in 2013, and we in the Department for Education took children’s services into a trust. We have invested millions of pounds in that trust and, since 2019, the trust is no longer considered inadequate, though it still requires improvement and remains in intervention.

I was therefore very disappointed to hear the hon. Gentleman’s stories about the services that Slough Borough Council provides for disabled children. Disabled children’s services are the responsibility of the council; they do not sit within the children’s trust. We have, however, provided support through a SEND adviser and increased the high-needs budget, as I mentioned. We know that the council’s SEND services have not been inspected by the joint inspections that Ofsted does with the CQC. However, SEND inspections will recommence in 2021, so I am hopeful that we will see some more inspections and get more feedback.

I appreciate that Slough Borough Council has a significant dedicated schools grant deficit. I am pleased that it is keen to work with us to improve it, but I must point out to Members that it is possible to manage a high-needs budget and SEND services effectively. We can all learn from authorities that have had good inspection outcomes. Slough might like to look at what has been achieved in Portsmouth or indeed in Lambeth.

I turn to the SEND review. We do recognise that the current system is not delivering for some children and young people—it is not helping them to achieve the outcomes that they deserve. My hon. Friend the Member for Hastings and Rye (Sally-Ann Hart) is right that we need a consistent approach across the whole country to ensure that children get the services and support that they need. Our cross-Government SEND review is looking at ways to improve that.

We know that these issues are long-standing and complex, but we are absolutely determined to deliver a real and lasting positive change. Our ambition is to publish proposals for wider public consultation before the summer. The review’s work is broad: it covers children and young people from birth to the age of 25 and looks at improving lifelong outcomes. We want to build on the best of the current system and put families at its heart, which means ensuring that we identify and meet needs as soon as possible, including by having strong support systems within mainstream settings as well as excellence in special school settings.

I trust that this extensive programme of work makes it clear that supporting children and families, especially our most vulnerable children and children with special needs and disabilities, is right at the heart of all that this Government do, especially in this very, very challenging time.