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Special Educational Needs (Information) Bill

My Lords, I beg to move that this Bill be now read a second time. It is a pleasure for me to introduce the Bill today. Like all good Private Members’ Bills it is a short and simple piece of legislation, which I hope will have a strong and sustained effect if it takes its place on the statute book. Some noble Lords will know that I have form as regards Private Member’s Bills. Building on the success that I have had with carers Private Members’ Bills, I believe that we should use such Bills as building blocks. If this Bill makes progress today, as I hope it will, we must continue to try and build on its provisions and unlock its potential as time goes by. As many knowledgeable noble Lords around the Chamber will know, there are an estimated 1.6 million children identified as having special educational needs in our schools. That is 19.7 per cent of the school population. Each and every one of those needs is different. Although we categorise type of need, we all know that each child faces a unique set of circumstances and challenges, as do their parents. These differences may lie in the classroom, the playground or the home, but one factor is constant throughout: there is not sufficient information available to those who are best placed to support these children. We need to obtain better information for parents, for schools, for governors and, most importantly, for the children themselves. This Bill will help to secure that information. It contains only two provisions. First, it would give the Secretary of State further powers to collect information which he considers will help to improve outcomes for children with special educational needs, and explicitly states that this information, when collected, must be published annually. Secondly, the Bill outlines exactly what outcomes must be monitored. These outcomes are broadly in line with the Government's Every Child Matters agenda and reflect not only educational attainment but emotional and physical well-being, contribution to society and economic well-being. In my view the Bill fits very neatly into the framework for SEN set out in the Children's Plan published earlier this year. If it helps to deliver on some of the proposals within the plan, that should be welcomed, but I hope too that it can go further and provide Ministers with a basis on which they can make further strides in mapping out existing provision and plans for the future. In time the practical implications of this Bill should assist Ministers in ironing out the variations in provision which exist across the country. If we are serious about improving not only outcomes but raising expectation, we must first put an end to the drastic differences in policy and provision which exist across local authorities. The scale and complexity of policies to deal with special educational needs in our schools are as complex and varied as the needs themselves. That is precisely why we need greater information in order fully to understand the existing web of provision. Local authorities are faced with local challenges whether they are cultural, social or economic. Depending on the local authority's policy there are bound to be some discrepancies in the recording of special educational needs and the awarding of statements. However, the fact still remains that at a local level there is far too marked a variation in recorded incidence of SEN from as low as 13.5 per cent in one local authority to more than 27 per cent in another. That is unacceptable. The provisions laid out in the Bill give us a golden opportunity to place a spotlight on the performance of local authorities in delivering for children with SEN. We can identify and introduce best practice and ensure effective use of time and resources among staff. A report from the Audit Commission published last year showed that the average cost of placing a pupil outside their home local authority is just over £57,000 a year. Ensuring quality provision across the board will help to cut back on the number of out-of-authority placements and, in time, reduce the cost incurred by the public purse. I understand that Ministers have undertaken to assess the possibility of increasing the categorisation of children with SEN down to the school action level of need. That would be a very welcome step which would provide clarity to approximately 1 million children and their families who are currently in the position whereby they have been told that they have a special educational need but have not been told what that need actually is. Many parents face a frustrating experience as they try to navigate their way through the system to secure the best possible support for their children. I used to see that all the time when I headed up a carers’ movement, when distressed parents were trying to find their way through the bureaucracy and form-filling. Although parent partnership services do a valuable job, there remains a suspicion among parents that those services are not always as impartial as they could be, and that needs to be addressed. It would be of little use simply to add to the myriad statistics that can be found in the backwaters of the DCSF website. Therefore, I hope that it would be the intention of Ministers, should this Bill go on to become law, to produce a hard copy report that would be made available annually to parents. I emphasise that the report should be in plain English and easily digestible for the reader. From previous experience with Private Members’ Bills, I know that their passage through this House and the other place can at times be tricky. The Bill has reached us with no amendments from the point of its conception, and I hope that it can remain in its current form. None the less, in the other place there was much discussion about the role that the teaching workforce plays in identifying and supporting the children concerned. Improving outcomes for pupils, which after all is the intended consequence of monitoring them, must go hand in hand with improving the skills and training of teachers. The Minister may inform us of plans for the introduction of a survey of the teaching workforce that will be introduced in the next few years, which is to be welcomed. It is important to note that there is unanimity of opinion that initial teacher training must instil confidence in our teachers to accurately identify children with SEN. In addition, we need to give teachers access to the kind of ongoing professional development that will enable them to build on initial training and develop specialist skills for supporting pupils with special educational needs. There have been discussions in the other place and outside about amendments to the Bill to place an obligation on Ministers to monitor both initial training and ongoing professional development, and there is significant support for that across the sector. However, this Bill cannot be the vehicle for achieving that goal. I hope that as part of a wider and sustained campaign we can not only monitor teacher development but improve it. It may well be that having this Bill on the statue book would be a useful hook for such a campaign. As a former campaigner, I know how important ongoing campaigns are, and I know how tremendously important it is that the charities that have these children as their main concern have given their support. I thank them for the crucial part that they played in building the necessary groundswell of support to see it make progress. I pay tribute to the Special Educational Consortium, which is an umbrella group of over 100 organisations that have an interest in special educational needs. Its briefing paper, which I am sure many noble Lords have received, states that the, "““lack of information on children with SEN prevents a clear focus on whether the provision made for these children is promoting the best possible outcomes for them. The lack of information at a central government level has been highlighted in responses to parliamentary questions, which often concede, ‘This information is not collected centrally’. The information this Bill will secure is required to provide a better basis for national planning, particularly as the pattern of needs changes over time””." The autism charity TreeHouse has a vision to transform through education the lives of children with autism and the lives of their families. TreeHouse has put its weight behind the Bill, having found that 60 per cent of Written Questions to Ministers go unanswered. The needs of deaf children also deserve strong consideration when looking to improve provision for children with SEN. I am pleased that the RNID has given the Bill its support, on the basis that 42 per cent of deaf children are less likely than their hearing peers to get five GCSE grades A to C and that the educational achievement of deaf pupils is well below the national average. I must give a mention to the dyslexia charities Dyslexia Action, the British Dyslexia Association and Xtraordinary People for their input. The challenges faced by dyslexic children in our schools must be overcome so that we can unlock their tremendous potential. In conclusion, I return to the underlying reasons for the Bill. None of us can pretend that securing the publication of information relating to a wide range of outcomes will change anything by itself. It will, however, be a very powerful catalyst for improving outcomes and improving provision. Publication of information can only give us a snapshot of the situation, but by securing regular publication of information we can build up a clear view of the direction in which we are moving. Millions of people will be waiting to scrutinise this information should it be collected and published, and they will all have but one motive: to improve the lives and life chances of children with special educational needs. The Bill would ensure greater collection of information and greater publication of information. That information would be just one tool, but a very important tool, so that parents, schools, teachers and campaigners will have more of what they need to build a better future for children with special educational needs. That is what we all want to see. I commend the Bill to the House. Moved, That the Bill be now read a second time.—(Baroness Pitkeathley.)