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Special Educational Needs (Information) Bill

I echo the comments made by the hon. Member for Basingstoke (Mrs. Miller) about my hon. Friend the Member for Gateshead, East and Washington, West (Mrs. Hodgson), who is quite a special person herself. My hon. Friend knows from our private conversations what I think about her communication skills. She is an extremely effective advocate on the subject and I congratulate her on the progress that her Bill has made so far and will continue to make today, we hope. I praise the hon. Member for Mid-Dorset and North Poole (Annette Brooke) for her involvement and interest in and passion for the subject. In Committee, she said that the purpose of the new clause is to ensure that local authorities make available clear information to parents on the range of special educational provision that is available—a laudable aim that I think that everybody would support. Of course, such information should already be available. That is always the difficulty as we try to will the end result. The information should be available through several avenues. Under the Education (School Information) (England) Regulations 2002, local authorities must publish information about their detailed arrangements and policies for special educational provision. That includes the provision made by an authority in its community, voluntary and special schools for people with SEN and the use made by them of such special schools maintained by other authorities. They must also publish information about the authorities' arrangements and policies in respect of the use of non-maintained special and independent schools and the special educational provision provided otherwise than at school. The information must be published no later than six weeks before the date by which parents may express a preference for a school for admission that school year. In addition, under the Education Act 1996 local authorities must keep the arrangements that they make for special educational provision under review. Under separate regulations covering local education authorities' provision of information on special educational needs, authorities must publish information on the general arrangements they make for auditing, planning, monitoring and reviewing special educational provision in their area. The information must be made available on the authority's website and in written form to anybody on request. From our debate, I understand that not all local authorities meet their duty—it is indeed a duty—to publish such information. If Members have evidence of non-compliance, such as the reports that have been cited today, and they bring it directly and specifically to our attention we will investigate. The Secretary of State can intervene to direct local authorities to carry out their duties.