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Education and Inspections Bill

My Lords, I rise for a second time because I spoke to Amendment No. 80 but am now prompted to see that two other amendments in this group are in my name and that of the noble Lord, Lord Lucas. I had therefore better do something about them. In Committee, I represented, as did the Select Committee, that there should be a separation of the judgment of what a child’s needs were in special education from the management of money and the constraints that that imposed on decision-takers. Bringing the two together causes a risk that the first will be moderated by the second. In response, the Minister referred to the importance of not taking away major responsibilities from local authorities, which by implication my amendment did, and said that it was unreasonable to expect anyone to sign a blank cheque. In response, I said something to the effect that I understood that the matter could not be taken on the hoof and that, having listened to the Minister, I was not in the business of parading half-baked solutions. Needless to say, I was tempted by the leisure offered by the Recess to offer the Minister some solutions. I am proud of them, but I realise that our idea of separation is complex. Although I am, and have been for many years, a quango person, I was reluctant to propose another one. My initial idea to transfer responsibility for assessment to local health authorities seemed a good one and would not have created another quango. However, I found that they also were affected by monetary considerations. So that idea did not work. I thought then of the care commission, which certainly is not influenced by monetary considerations, as I know from its very searching requirements for certain classes of care home. I considered the commission, but I do not know enough about it. So I thought that I would go for the simple solution, to place a statutory duty on those charged with responsibility for considering what a child’s needs are, but to do it without regard to financial considerations although it would remain within the local authority’s ambit. It would then be for the local authority to decide what financial response it thought fit and right to make in all the relevant circumstances. I suggest that, once a year, those charged with making assessments should make an observation or commentary on what they feel about the response from the local authority so that it is publicly accountable for its decisions. Thus, there would be separation but the local authority would be fully able and responsible for taking the final decisions and would be held accountable for them. That is the first part of my proposals but I have a supplementary one. The Minister very kindly wrote to me about representations that I made in Committee about the difficulties that parents sometimes have in coping with the official documents that they receive from local authorities. He referred me to the Parent Partnership service, which, I confess, I did not know about, and I suspect that a large number of other people do not know about it either. So I made some inquiries at an excellent local authority about this body. I found that it is located in one office in one part of a large area and that its funding, shared over the population, amounts to 25p per head. I then made some further inquiries and asked how much the figure would work out at if—although this is not always the case—it was concerned only with special educational needs. The figure was much better—14p a head. But when I think of all the overhead costs incurred by any public body, I wonder how much time a parent perplexed by the system could expect to have. Therefore, I came up with a twofold proposal: first, that very early in a letter to any parent, the local authority should draw attention to the Parent Partnership service with an address and telephone number; and, secondly, that the local authority should have a duty to see that it is adequately funded. It should all be left with the local authority. I remind the Minister that we all know, with sadness, that 20 per cent of people leave school functionally illiterate. When you receive a letter which, however well intentioned the official may be, has had to go through the lawyers to ensure that it is okay, the result is not readily accessible to parents who have left school functionally illiterate. Those who suffer are the children, and it is our job to ensure that children who have special needs through no fault of their own are not disadvantaged because their parents are unable to respond, as the middle-class parents are able to do, to this kind of document. They need real help.