Children and Families Bill

Baroness Cumberlege Excerpts

Tuesday 7th January 2014 Lords Chamber

I am grateful also to the noble Baronesses, Lady Hughes and Lady Jones, for their amendments seeking to require consideration of “educational progress” rather than age. I am pleased that we have achieved such a degree of consensus. I hope that noble Lords will support my proposed amendments, which represent a very positive improvement to the Bill and reflect the very constructive and helpful debates that we have had in this House. I beg to move.

[Baroness Cumberlege (Con)]

My Lords, I am delighted to be able to support my noble friend on these amendments which remove the requirement for local authorities to have regard to age when making decisions about the education, health and care plans for young people.

Amendment 173, which I proposed in Grand Committee and in which I was supported by the noble Baronesses, Lady Hughes and Lady Jones, aimed to achieve the same end that has been put forward in these amendments. As my noble friend said, it removes Clause 45(4). I applaud the Government for recognising the force of our arguments and for putting forward these very important amendments, which will make a significant difference not only to the Act when it is passed but to the young people concerned, which clearly is the most important part of this amendment.

Like many other noble Lords, I pay a personal tribute to my noble friend Lord Nash, who has been generous in the time he has spent discussing this aspect of the Bill with me and many other noble Lords and in the determination that he has shown to get it right for young people at what many of us consider to be the most important time of transition in their lives. I am very grateful for his recognition that some young people with special educational needs require more time to complete their education beyond the age of 18. Of course, that has now been translated into the amendment in the Bill. This requires local authorities to consider whether the young person requires additional time to complete his or her education or training. That is a very good thing indeed.

My noble friend will know from the amendment that I proposed in Grand Committee that I believe that local authorities should be required to have regard not only to whether education and training outcomes have been achieved but to whether,

“health and social care outcomes have been achieved”.

The Government did not support that amendment. Nevertheless, I welcome the proposed amendments to Clauses 44 and 45 which will require local authorities, when reviewing a plan or considering whether to propose the cessation of an EHC plan, to have regard to whether the education or training outcomes specified have been achieved. Focusing on outcomes is much more important for young people with complex special educational needs. Their chronological age is far less relevant than whether they have achieved the skills that will enable them to make a successful transition to adult life.

I have one remaining concern, however, and a request to my noble friend. I am worried that some people may mistakenly interpret the phrase “education and training outcomes” in too narrow a way and relate these primarily to formal accredited learning and qualifications. I know from my noble friend’s visit to the Chailey Heritage Foundation that he understands that, for some young people with complex needs, the learning educational outcomes they achieve will not be appropriately assessed and recognised through the usual formal accredited qualifications. It would be most unfortunate if local authorities sought to stop EHC plans for young people with complex needs because the outcomes they wanted to achieve post-18 were not ones that could be formally accredited.

The code of practice should be explicit about the full range of educational outcomes that might be legitimately included in an EHC plan. I therefore ask for assurance that the code of practice will make clear that the educational and training outcomes in these clauses will be considered in the wider sense and not restricted to accredited learning or formal qualifications.

[Baroness Sharp of Guildford]

My Lords, my name is attached to many of these amendments and I am delighted to support them all. I also pay tribute to the Minister for having listened to the arguments that we put forward in Committee.

First, it was suggested in Committee that some young people over 18 might not need the help and support they had been getting. That would provide local authorities with an excuse for dropping such support after 18 by using those words “to have regard to age”. Secondly, and perhaps more importantly, it was said that the wording was too flexible. We all know that circumstances can vary enormously and that some young people with SEN are ready by the age of 18 to stand on their own and that—partly thanks to the help and support they have received—they are well able to cope without further support. However, others mature later and need to be given extra help and support. Indeed, they often need to take longer, as the noble Baroness, Lady Cumberlege, indicated, over the process of learning and acquiring skills and qualifications. The Minister agreed with those arguments and stated very clearly in his response that the provision of continuing support was not a matter of age but of whether the young person concerned was ready to move into adult life. He was not prepared to move initially in Committee but he said that he was very willing to meet us. The amendments that he has introduced today very largely meet the points that we made then and show that he has very much heeded those arguments. The new wording introduced today meets our requirements.

The first of the two key amendments is Amendment 34D to Clause 36. The wording,

“have regard to his or her age”,

will be changed to,

“consider whether he or she requires additional time, in comparison to the majority of others of the same age who do not have special educational needs, to complete his or her education or training”.

In Amendment 39B to Clause 44, “his or her age” will be omitted and the words,

“whether the educational or training outcomes specified in the plan have been achieved”,

will be inserted. As the revised wording implies, the clear intention is that local authorities should be flexible in their approach, and should above all consider whether the young person has reached a point where they can do without the extra help and support that an EHC plan would give them. It is clear from the various case studies provided to us by those who are anxious to see the wording changed, that many young people need and will benefit from this flexible approach. I again thank the Minister and the Bill team for their readiness to listen to our arguments and to make these changes.

However, there is some unhappiness among those providing education and training to over-18s with special educational needs about the current wording of the draft code of practice. In particular, they think that there is a degree of inconsistency in it. At some points the draft code rightly emphasises—as the wording of the amended Bill does—the needs of the individual, whether the outcomes specified in the EHC plan have been achieved and whether the young person is ready to enter and cope with adulthood. At other times the code seems to point to the cliff edge—that once a young person reaches the age of 18, it is no longer necessary to maintain the plan. Could the Minister and his officials, having now amended the Bill, make sure that the code of practice fully reflects the amendments that we have made?

In general, I reiterate how very grateful those for whom I have been speaking in relation to these issues and I are to the Minister and his officials for listening to us, and for amending the Bill.