Children and Families Bill

Baroness Perry of Southwark Excerpts

Wednesday 6th November 2013 Grand Committee

[Baroness Morris of Yardley (Lab)]

I listened very carefully to the Minister. I think we will all want to read his comments in Hansard because it was quite a technical response, although I appreciate that that was absolutely necessary. I have a query about the phrase “single point of access”, which I would not mind him expanding on.

A lot was said about the difficulties of parents in accessing more than one tribunal. That is right. Has the Minister reflected on the message it gives to those people we are asking to integrate a service? A lot of people doubt that that can happen and will not take the Government seriously on this. If you really want to change the culture of three separate public services, you must not give them an excuse not to make the change. Throughout the discussion of this Bill, we have said that it is not about passing a law but about changing the culture. Having such a pivotal part of the whole procedure still split into three separate parts is actually saying, “At the end of day, we could not do it. We wanted to integrate, but when it got to the tough bit, the bit about the appeal, we, the Government, could not do it”. The naysayers will say, “There you are. We told you it couldn’t be done”. I know it is not the Minister’s intention, but what will happen is that that will ripple down the system, and people will say there that there is another inconsistency in what the Government say and that they say one thing and then do a different thing. The bit of the process that is the Government’s responsibility is the appeal. If we cannot change government culture and get it integrated, we are undermining genuine attempts by the Government to change the culture further along the channel.

I was not clear about what the Minister said. He gave two responses. One was, “I really think this amendment is right, but I do not think it can be done”, and the other was, “I do not think this amendment is necessary”. I was not sure which side he came down on. It is important that we know that between now and Report because that will give those people who feel strongly about this an indication of where the campaigning needs to be done.

I end on this single point of access. I wonder whether the Minister was actually saying that he has a compromise that he might suggest on Report around something called a single point of access. I am sorry for the long intervention, but what we can expect on Report in terms of a direction of travel is important so that people who have put a lot of work into preparing these amendments will be able to marshal their arguments.

[Baroness Perry of Southwark (Con)]

I have a great deal of sympathy with what the noble Baroness said. It is true that the excitement of the Bill is in the bringing together of these three services, but the noble Baroness’s argument has not answered the Minister’s point about giving priority to SEN children over children who are very sick with cancer or other diseases. It is inherent in the system that that problem will remain. We cannot, just by will, say that bringing them all together will somehow stop there being a different route for SEN children from that for other children, and that point has to be answered.

[Lord Nash]

The noble Baroness, Lady Morris, makes her point powerfully and well. I entirely agree with her about the necessity of changing the culture and that in some cases we may be dancing on the head of a pin and what matters is the practicality at the coal face. We need to make sure that we attempt to do this practically and fairly so that we do not unreasonably advantage one group of children over another, as my noble friend Lady Perry said. We will try to ensure that, with further dialogue between now and Report, we all understand where we are on this.

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord Low of Dalston]

My Lords, the noble Lord, Lord Addington, has had a pretty good run for his money and has got not only unanimous but very voluble support from the other Members of the Committee. I would not detract from that one whit. I support every word he said and what others have added, but I wonder whether I may crave the Committee’s indulgence to make a slight change of subject.

I shall speak to Amendment 192 in this group, which is tabled in my name and the names of the noble Lord, Lord Touhig, and the noble Baroness, Lady Sharp. It is a probing amendment which would require schools to retain the current system of school action and school action plus. We may not have formulated the amendment perfectly, and I am sure there is room for plenty of discussion about how it might be focused or targeted more precisely. I am anxious to learn more about the Government’s thinking in seeking to abolish the current stages of school action and school action plus. As we know, the Government are replacing that graduated approach with a single SEN category. The amendment refers to schools, but my concerns also relate to how early years settings and post-16 institutions will meet the needs of children and young people with SEN.

My reason for tabling this amendment is that, like the Government, I believe that policy should be developed on the basis of robust evidence. Changing the way the SEN system operates in every English school and early years setting could be very disruptive. We need to be sure that any change will genuinely improve outcomes for children and young people before we embark on what is quite a major change. From what we have heard so far, it seems that the Government’s intention here is to improve the identification of special educational needs. The Ofsted report, A Statement is not Enough, published in 2010, suggested that some children and young people were being wrongly identified as having special educational needs.

Improving the identification of special educational needs is a goal everyone would support. However, my understanding is that the Ofsted report did not in any way indicate that the problem resided in the graduated approach of school action and school action plus. The same is true of the Lamb inquiry, which also picked up on the issue of identification, but did not indicate in any of its 51 recommendations that the problem arose from school action and school action plus. Neither of these important investigations proposed the removal of the current system, so I wonder on what evidence the Government are basing their decision to move to a single category of SEN. Everyone has been encouraged by the reference in the recently published draft code of practice to “a graduated response”. Since the Government remain committed to a graduated response, which is provided by school action and school action plus, one wonders why they are so insistent on the need for this change.

I should also like to pick up on the fact that the draft code of practice removes guidance on the use of individual education plans. IEPs were a key feature of the school action and school action plus system. They set out educational targets, the agreed SEN support and how progress would be measured. They require schools to involve children, young people and their parents in the process and are vital for parents when holding schools to account. When used properly, IEPs are a simple and effective way of recording targets, putting support in place and tracking the child’s progress. While they might not always be used as effectively as they might be, would it not be better to seek to improve the way IEPs are used than to scrap them altogether?

The Government are not opposed to schools retaining these types of records. The draft code says that schools should keep records and that these can be shared with parents. Again, therefore, one is prompted to ask why the Government are getting rid of something so valued by parents when they continue to support the principles behind it. I would be extremely grateful if, when he responds to the debate, the Minister could set out the Government’s thinking and give us the rationale for these changes and, in particular, the evidence on which they are based. It seems that the Government still support the principles of a graduated approach and keeping good records, so it is important that we understand why we need what is really quite a major change.

[Baroness Perry of Southwark]

I have no wish to continue this debate for too long. I first declare the interest that I, too, have a very dyslexic granddaughter. The fact that so many of us are able to point to younger family members with dyslexia marks how much better diagnoses have got in the past 20 or 30 years. Previously, people were very often thought to be rather stupid, so the diagnosis has greatly improved things. We have come a very long way in providing good diagnoses and excellent treatment at school level. Dyslexic boys and girls get a tremendous amount of help in school: they get more time for their examinations, technological help and so on. In the university world, there is enormous help: large numbers of dyslexic young people taking final examinations get special help, extra time and all that is necessary. It seems absurdly wrong that, at a time when we have expanded apprenticeships—and like the noble Baroness, Lady Walmsley, I am immensely proud of what this Government have done about apprenticeships—we have left this lacuna in the middle of the provisions. Schools do well and universities do well, yet when it comes to apprenticeships we have this absurd drafting of legislation—probably a slip of the pen—which makes it impossible for dyslexics, and people who have other handicaps to do with writing and speaking, to get through. I hope that the Minister will not just say that it is all okay and that nothing needs to be done. I really believe that something could so easily be done in this legislation now, and this is a good opportunity to do it.