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Special Educational Needs

: The minority is not as small as one would think. I shall give some figures on that point later. LEAs are resisting requests for statementing, delaying the process. When a parent finally reaches the point of a statement, the LEA will minimise both the needs and the provision in order to justify inclusion in mainstream—a situation led by cost implications as much as by political dogma. If a parent wants or feels that their child needs specialist provision, they have to fight for it via a special educational needs and disability tribunal—SENDIST. Officially, there is no cost to such tribunals, but they involve a complicated legal process and parents need legal representation. The Education and Skills Committee recently took evidence from Simon Oliver, a barrister and chair of the SEN tribunal. He revealed that it costs between £2,000 and £10,000 for a parent to take a case to a tribunal. Because of the cost involved, only affluent middle class parents are able to take on an LEA's decision. Conversely, the Government consider the low number of tribunals in the UK—3,300—as a measure of policy success. I look on it as a measure of the number of people who can afford to pay. The sad reality is that those from lower socio-economic backgrounds are denied opportunities because the system is out of their reach. The SENDIST annual report for 2003–04 states that the vast majority of cases that go to tribunal—88 per cent.—are successful and find in favour of the parents. Of the parents who go to tribunal, 39 per cent. go in an attempt just to get a statement. It seems that parental preference works well, and that LEAs respond positively, if the parent wishes their child to go to a mainstream school, but not in any other circumstances. That is owing to the reluctance of LEAs, which believe that they are carrying out the Government's wishes to place children in mainstream schools. All authorities are under financial pressure. Therefore, it is no surprise that they will act in a contrary way whether it is appropriate or not. Minimisation of the extent of a child's needs in the statementing process is without doubt driven by financial pressure and political dogma. The closure of 91 special schools since 1997 compounds the problem. Even if some LEAs wanted to send all the children who needed to do so to special schools, many no longer have the places available. The situation is turning ugly, and parents are beginning to organise themselves into effective lobby groups. I have been told stories by lay parent representatives of LEAs refusing to supply transport for a child to attend a special school but agreeing to transport the child to a mainstream school in order to force parents' decisions. Parents react to that. Many parents of children with Asperger's or ASD at the higher end of the continuum have SEN problems themselves and simply cannot navigate the system. Even parents who do not have SEN struggle to access it. There are examples of best practice throughout ““Every Child Matters””, ““Removing Barriers to Achievement”” and the new education White Paper. I would like to give three examples of my own. First, I would like to tell hon. Members about a little boy called Jack, whose case is an example of worst practice. It adds weight and brings clarity to the statement by Baroness Warnock that inclusion has gone too far. I met Jack in my first surgery as a new MP. He destroyed my room. He turned the chairs upside down, banged the door backwards and forwards, took books off cupboards and the desk and put them on the floor, and played with the light switch continuously until it made a fizzing noise. I thought that he would electrocute himself. As well as a hyperactive little boy, I had in my office his concerned, embarrassed and distressed mother, who had accompanied him. It was not a good situation. In order to try to calm Jack down, I made paper planes from some loose notes on my desk. He stopped and watched. He had my one-to-one attention, and that gave his mother five minutes to tell me his story. Jack was in a local mainstream school. The teachers told mum that Jack was fine with the few hours' support that he received each week. Jack's mum showed me his daily report books: ““Jack learned the alphabet today””, ““Jack communicated well today””, ““Jack had a good day.”” Personally, I could not understand how that could be possible. One of the first things that one notices about Jack is his inability to communicate using speech. The second thing that one notices is the amount of effort one has to put in to securing his attention, even for a minute. Mum told me that Jack was bullied at school. One could understand why: children are not the most patient beings. It was entirely understandable that Jack's behaviour could drive other normally mild-tempered children to the point of distraction. She told me of an incident a few months earlier when a child had pulled the chair out from under Jack as he went to sit down, causing him to fall backwards. She had not sent him to school since. Jack was a victim of inclusion. The policy had, in fact, excluded him from school, and a little boy who needed education the most was receiving none at all. That is a UK-wide problem. When things go wrong with a child who has Asperger's or a child who is higher on the autistic continuum, things go spectacularly wrong. Children with autistic spectrum disorders and Asperger's find mainstream the most challenging environment imaginable. They struggle with language. Can we imagine that? Can we imagine what it is like to struggle with language and not to understand what people are saying to us? Such children are confused by noise and by changing faces. They find it impossible to interact socially, but they understand that the inability to make friends and the creation of problems around them are of their own doing. Their behaviour is often extreme and bizarre, yet according to child psychologists, local education authorities refuse to accept the proven research that because of the nature of the condition, which robs the child of an interest in people and the motivation to interact, children with ASD and Asperger's do not learn from other children naturally. They find the noise, stimulation and movement of the everyday world so overwhelming and terrifying that they simply shut down. Some 27 per cent. of children with ASD are excluded from mainstream school at any one time. Today, 27 per cent. of autistic children in mainstream are not in attendance. Some 23 per cent. of that 27 per cent. are repeatedly excluded. Parents of SEN children talk of common themes: the minimising of needs during the statementing process, closing special schools, and turning those that are left into regional residential centres for those with extreme needs. On Friday, I had a conversation with the headmaster of a special school in the north of England. He said:"““Two years ago I had about 30 referrals a year. For the last two years I have had 11. All 11 have been children who are in extreme need and were inappropriate for this school. This year we will reach the point of financial inviability. We will have 50 children in the school. When that happens those children will be thrown to the four winds without a care, probably into the new academy, where they will sink. We have been told that the school will either close, or we will become a regional residential centre for the most severely disabled children. We await the department's decision.””" The headmaster believes that the lifeblood of his school has been cut off, and that children such as Jack do not reach him now unless the parent has the financial means to go to a tribunal.