Asked by: Lord Ramsbotham (Crossbench - Life peer)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask Her Majesty’s Government what plans they have to develop a national framework on children's early speech, language and communication needs.
Answered by Lord Nash
We are committed to supporting children and young people with speech, language and communication needs (SLCN) and recognise the importance of identifying SLCN early to enable the right support to be put in place and reduce the impact that they may have in the longer term.
The Children and Families Act 2014 places a renewed focus on the early identification of needs and focuses the system on the impact of the support provided to the child, rather than on how children access support according to categories of need.
The Early Years Foundation Stage Statutory Framework (EYFS) sets out the key areas of learning which every provider must follow. For communication and language, the EYFS requires practitioners to give children the opportunity to experience a rich language environment, to develop their confidence and skills in expressing themselves and to speak and listen in a range of situations. Communication and language is a prime area of learning, within which it is expected that all children attain an expected level in the listening and attention, understanding and speaking early learning goals.
The EYFS profile results tells us that children’s development in these areas are improving year on year. In 2016, 81.6% of children achieved at least the expected level in communication and language compared to 72.2% in 2013.
The government recognises that the quality of the workforce has the biggest impact on children’s outcomes. We have recently published our workforce strategy which sets out our plans to remove the barriers to attracting, retaining and developing staff in the early years workforce. One of the planned actions is to provide training through voluntary and community sector grants on Special Educational Needs and Disability (SEND), speech and language development and effective business management.
We have allocated £223 million to local authorities (LAs), since 2014 to support them to implement the SEND reforms. We published, in December 2016, seven Invitations to Tender for contracts totalling up to £4.8m to support children and young people with SEND in 2017-18.
One of the resulting contracts will specifically support those with SLCN and comes in addition to £1.7m that has already been invested in SLCN since the implementation of the SEND reforms in 2014. This funding is improving support for children and young people who have SLCN both with and without an Education, Health and Care (EHC) plan. One of the contract requirements will be to improve the quality of referrals and the effectiveness of commissioning specialist support for children and young people with SLCN, whether or not they have an EHC plan.
We are also delivering, through our strategic partners, a range of support for joint working between LAs and health bodies, including: self-assessment tools to jointly monitor progress with meeting responsibilities and briefings to support commissioning. In addition, from 2017-18, for the first time, NHS provider contracts will include a requirement that health professionals provide input into EHC plans within six weeks. We are working with NHS England (NHSE) to make best use of resources to support joint working, including NHSE-led workshops this spring, and to support the delivery of the Transforming Care Programme to improve services for children, young people and adults.
The Children and Families Act 2014 places a duty on Clinical Commissioning Groups and LAs to deliver integrated support to improve children and young peoples’ outcomes. This means that local governance arrangements must be in place to ensure clear accountability for commissioning services for children and young people with SEND from birth to the age of 25, whether or not they have an EHC plan.
In addition, nurseries, schools and colleges must use their best endeavours to secure the necessary special education provision needed by those with identified SEND, which includes commissioning speech and language therapy services. Local authorities can also use their high needs budget to fund support without the need for an EHC plan if it is appropriate to do so.
Government, local areas and the professionals working with children and young people with SLCN all have their part to play in the commissioning of services and highlighting where challenges remain. To this end, we have put in place a new Ofsted and CQC inspection framework for assessing local area effectiveness with meeting their SEND responsibilities. We are working closely with the Department of Health and NHSE to respond to findings and support local areas to improve services and build on their strengths.
We expect details of services to meet SLCN, including how they can be accessed, to be included in the local offer, which every LA is required to publish in consultation with children, parents and young people. This enables families to hold LAs to account for any provision they feel has not been available as specified in the Local Offer, and to suggest new services they consider necessary.
Asked by: Lord Ramsbotham (Crossbench - Life peer)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask Her Majesty’s Government what conclusions they have drawn from the research commissioned by the Department for Education in 2010 into the development of government guidance on governance arrangements in children’s services: <i>Research governance in children’s services: the scope for new advice</i>.
Answered by Lord Nash
This report highlighted the importance of governance and ethical consideration in children’s services research. The report suggested that at the time of the research, local practice was variable, but there were, and still are, a number of accepted research governance arrangements in place for local authorities and other research organisations to seek guidance and approval, including the Association of Directors of Children’s Services (ADCS), the Social Research Association, the NSPCC, and university ethics boards. The Department for Education has concluded that these arrangements are the best route for local authorities and external research organisations to obtain external guidance on research governance and ethics.
Following publication of the report, the Department, in consultation with the ADCS Research Group, has developed ethics guidance and an ethics checklist for its own funded research and evaluation. This is based on the Government Social Research Professional Guidance, which sets out the principles that should be used when conducting social research for the Government. It states that those conducting, commissioning or managing Government social research have a responsibility to ensure that research is conducted using appropriate methods and that the rights and interests of all those involved in the research process are protected. Research should be conducted in a manner that:
ensures valid, informed consent is obtained before individuals participate in research (for children under 16, parents/legal guardians as well as the children themselves must be approached for consent to participate);
takes reasonable steps to identify and remove barriers to participation;
avoids personal and social harm; and
protects the confidentiality of information about research participants and their identities.
Asked by: Lord Ramsbotham (Crossbench - Life peer)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask Her Majesty’s Government what plans they have to encourage profit-making companies to run Secure Children's Homes.
Answered by Lord Nash
The Government has worked closely with the Association of Directors of Children’s Services, Local Government Association, the Youth Justice Board and the Secure Accommodation Network to consider how the operation of the secure children’s homes system could be better planned and co-ordinated to meet children’s needs.
We are currently considering the commissioning arrangements for all children’s homes as part of our response to recommendations made in Sir Martin Narey’s independent review of residential care. We also await the outcome of Charlie Taylor’s review of the youth justice system in England and Wales. Work will continue through to the end of this year to identify the best long-term commissioning arrangements for secure children’s homes.