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Special Educational Needs

I add my congratulations to my hon. Friend the Member for Mid-Bedfordshire (Mrs. Dorries) on securing this important debate. It is clear that this matter troubles many people out in the wide world of local government and in the even wider world of parenting. My hon. Friend's comments were helpful, constructive and appealing. I also pay tribute to the hon. Member for Luton, North (Kelvin Hopkins) for his lucid rendition, which was free of dogma, and just the sort of contribution that is vital to this important subject. I found myself nodding in agreement on many occasions; it was a pleasure to listen to his wise words, which we should all take seriously. It is no secret that I am a county councillor and the finance portfolio holder in Northamptonshire; nor that I have grave concerns about the revenue support grant that will be announced in a few days' time. I know that that revenue support grant, which, in the words of the Minister, appears to be less generous than in previous years, will have a sizeable impact on provision for special educational needs. Certainly, in my county, that matter gives rise to great concern. It might help if I gave the Minister some background on special educational needs in Northamptonshire. My county has a great record in that respect, not least in relation to sufferers of autism. We have a nationally recognised reputation in that area, of which we are very proud. We take special educational needs very seriously—as we should. Some 3.1 per cent. of our pupils have statements—that is 3,500 children with special educational needs. We try to offer a sizeable range of provision, which in some respects relates to the remarks made by my hon. Friend the Member for Mid-Bedfordshire and by the hon. Member for Luton, North. We have 1,000 or so children in maintained schools, 350 with designated special provision attached to mainstream schools, 2,020 in mainstream schools without special provision who are part of the normal process, and 130 in independent or non-mainstream special schools, of whom 80 have residential provision. We therefore have a relatively wide menu of provisions for children with special educational needs. We must also recognise that, as has already been said, many children with special educational needs have other sizeable disabilities, which makes their ability to grasp opportunities in later life much more difficult and makes it equally difficult—but equally important—for us to offer provision to enable them to live a life that they would consider to be fulfilling. Indeed, we have 600 families who work not only with the special educational needs services but with the disabled children's services. Through those services, we provide for and support families in their own homes. Where we can, we provide respite care, which is a very great need for parents who look after and love children with the needs that we are talking about and with those extra disabilities. We have a family link service, which provides a network for parents who have particular difficulties with their children, and provision for the children themselves. We provide specialised, specifically designed play-schemes and residential placement for children with the most complex and challenging needs within that framework. We therefore try hard, not only to offer a wide provision of care and statemented educational need, but especially to recognise the additional disability which often comes with the need about which we are primarily talking. Finally, we recognise that some parents want to take care of their children, keep them out of mainstream education and provide that service themselves. We have 28 families who receive direct payment to arrange their own support in that respect. They are very brave and courageous parents who take a difficult decision. My sister was a teacher, but she resigned from teaching because she had a boy of 15, now 19, who was in a serious road accident. Although that is not an example of special educational needs, there was a special need and she decided that she wanted to look after the boy. She has taken on a lifetime of service in that respect. I am aware of the range of difficulties, and we in Northamptonshire try hard to meet them. Our number of out-of-county authority placements is also low. We have six out-of-county placements for every 10,000 people, against an average of 8.3 per 10,000 in the country. We believe that that is right. However, we must make as much effort as we can to ensure that we have good provision in our county, because out-of-county placement is so expensive and crippling to a county council budget when it is not controlled. We have a good record on in-county provision, but we want to do more. It is worth recognising how much the service costs the council tax payer in Northamptonshire. Our budget is £4.7 million and rising dramatically for SEN specifically. Together with the £1.7 million for disability, that is a sizeable part of our social services budget. I want to impress on the Minister that it is that part of the budget that is rising most dramatically—I am sure that I do not need to do so, but it is important to highlight that area of concern, because not only is my county under serious pressure with regard to financing such services, there is a general malaise and problem throughout the country that we must face if we want to provide disadvantaged children with the best possible lifestyle chances. There is not one person in the House or the wider world who would not agree with that objective. The problem is how do we provide the resource to do so? Costs are rising dramatically. Let me tell hon. Members how out-of-county costs for Northamptonshire have risen in the past three years: in 2002–03 they rose by 16 per cent., in 2003–04 they increased by 8 per cent., and in 2004–05 they rose by yet another 11 per cent. That has a massive impact on children's services, with which the RSG clearly does not keep pace. Indeed, I wonder whether it can in the present funding framework. This is about keeping pace with need in a world that is becoming ever more complicated. My county has another problem, because although some 5.6 per cent. of all moneys for SEN and disability with SEN needs comes from the health service nationally, in Northamptonshire we have no contribution. That is another problem that we must deal with. Perhaps we should do so locally and be better advocates for those children with our local health providers. I am not laying the charge at the Government's door; I am simply saying that the problem exists and that we must do something about it. Cost is a major problem and I shall highlight it briefly because I do not want to bore hon. Members with statistics. A 38-week placement for a deaf pupil costs £30,000 a year; a 38-week placement for a pupil with behavioural difficulties costs £45,000 a year; a £52-week placement for pupils with profound and multiple learning difficulties costs £84,000; more special cases may cost £160,000 or £170,000 a year. That has a massive impact on local government budgets that are already under pressure and will be under even greater pressure. The cost of placement in our local schools is lower, mainly because of the non-residential element, and varies between £10,000 and £20,000. It makes sense to try to provide the extra help and support that parents need. I have described a problem, but we are beginning to see it as a crisis. I fear that this year, the prophesised revenue support grant settlement—we have yet to see whether those prophesies are true—will cause even greater pressure. The truth of the matter is that in my county and many other counties, authorities simply do not have enough money to do the job. I know that every Department hears the plea that there is never enough money, but we are losing the race for SEN children, particularly SEN children with disabilities. We are losing the race. We do not receive enough money, because the RSG does not keep pace and we have overspent our children's budget. Every year, we put it up by a sizeable amount, but we cannot keep pace. We have some success, including with people from different counties, particularly in autism, but that success generates a need for further expenditure, which is difficult to keep up with. The Minister knows that money for placement does not flow into the county for about three years. It takes that long for the process to recognise placement. I see the Minister's officials looking quizzical, but that is what my county officials tell me and I can only relay what they tell me. Northamptonshire has been a growth county for some years, as have others, and that makes the cash lag worse. It will get worse, because we are an important part of the sustainable communities programme, which will add heavily to our problems. I want to move on quickly because I am taking too much time. I shall not talk about medical science saving more children with severe disabilities, about early intervention being a vital part of the process, or about the fact that less out-of-county care means that more respite care is required for parents, but I want to make a plea to the Minister. We are finding more cost-effective ways of dealing with the problem but we are losing the battle for resources. We need help with our higher costs and our growth agenda and with the delay in funding that I have mentioned. I know that it is hard for the Minister when appeals are made to her—we all recognise the serious need in this area—but I appeal to her to use all her skills with her colleagues in the Treasury to recognise that alleviating the problem is important to the wider community and vital if we are to give these children, many of whom have severe disabilities, the opportunity to enjoy at least some of the lifestyle that we take for granted.