[Relevant documents: e-petition 607849, Make SEND training mandatory for all teaching staff; e-petition 591092, Require School SENCOs to be fully qualified for the role; e-petition 587365, Require all school staff receive training on SEN children.]
That this House has considered a specialist workforce for children with special educational needs and disabilities.
It is a great pleasure and privilege to serve under your chairpersonship, Mr Sharma. I am the chair of the all-party parliamentary group on speech and language difficulties, which is supported by the Royal College of Speech and Language. I first pay tribute to Lord Ramsbotham, who did so much for the group over so many years, after an illustrious career in the Army and then the Prison Service. He certainly added great value.
Something like 50% of poorer children arrive at school with a speech delay, and in an average-sized class, which is 30 across Britain, something like two or three children have a speech delay of two to four years. Obviously, we are here to talk about the wider totality of special educational needs, not just speech and language, but it is worth mentioning that early intervention on speech and language would massively improve school performance, and thereby increase future tax revenues and reduce social costs, prison costs, justice costs and so on, so we really should think about that. In the wider totality, early intervention is a very good idea.
This debate, which I commissioned, comes partly on the back of a letter that I wrote to the Minister on behalf of 16 all-party groups, calling for the Department for Education and the Department of Health and Social Care to work in collaboration on special educational needs. We have now had the special educational needs review, and I was very pleased that in January the Minister agreed to speak to me. I am looking forward to confirming that date for a meeting with her and representatives from the all-party groups on autism, on cerebral palsy, on childcare and early education, on children who need palliative care, on disability, on dyslexia and other specific learning difficulties, on eye health and visual impairment, on muscular dystrophy, on oracy, on penal affairs, for the prevention of childhood trauma, on psychology, on social mobility, for special educational needs and disabilities, on speech and language difficulties, and on stroke. A very wide range of MPs is interested in this issue in one way or another.
On top of that, the SEND in The Specialists coalition, with which the Minister will be familiar, sent a letter in parallel to ours with the support of 114 organisations— I will not read them out—which has now grown to 128. The debate also comes on the back of a number of written questions I have tabled on specialist workforce, and another letter from 22 all-party groups about funding for speech and language therapy.
The Government have announced the plan for special educational needs and disabilities and alternative provision for England, and I hope the Minister will set out a bit more detail on that in this debate. I know there is a steering group planned for 2023, which aims to complete by 2025. As far as parents and people engaged with this issue are concerned, the sooner, the better.
It is a pleasure to speak under your chairship, Mr Sharma. Many young children have faced an array of social and developmental challenges as a result of covid-19, and children with special educational needs and disabilities have been deeply affected due to the lack of services accessible for their needs during this time.
Every week, I have at least one constituent come to see me, pleading for support for their child with special educational needs, which are often undiagnosed because they cannot get an education, health and care plan or an appointment with child and adolescent mental health services. The formative years of a child’s life are essential for their development, and without changes and improved support for these specialist services, children with SEND will be exposed to bullying, mental health issues, isolation and disadvantages later in life and in the workforce.
SEND in The Specialists highlighted how we need to incentivise employment into the special needs workforce, as well as retain those already in it. Improving recruitment and retention is vital to provide the specialist teachers and staff that we need for our children and young people. Many schools need more assistance for these children. For schools to remain inclusive, it is essential to have specialist and supportive frameworks in place to keep more children in mainstream education.
I enjoy visiting the primary and secondary schools across Hastings and Rye. It is the best part of this job. I speak to the pupils and staff. One young primary school teacher was telling me recently that she has four young children with challenging SEND needs in her class. Without the support of teaching assistants and named teaching assistants, it would be impossible to control the class and provide for the needs of these children, let alone the rest of the class, especially if the TAs and NTAs are off sick or leave because they, too, find it extremely challenging.
I thank the hon. Member for allowing me an intervention. I intervene purely because the issue that I hear most about from parents of SEN children is the lengthy waiting time for speech and language therapists, which is in part due to workforce shortages. The improvement plan is welcome in the sense that it talks about improving access, but does she agree that we need more therapists now, precisely because of the impact that delays have on children in the system, as my hon. Friend the Member for Swansea West (Geraint Davies) pointed out?
I agree with the hon. Gentleman. I was going to say that all primary schools that I visited in Hastings and Rye have highlighted the need for speech and language provision for younger children coming to school following covid. It is essential. They are behind with oracy and communication skills, and that impacts on their ability to access learning. Our local primary schools have provided that provision themselves, and they work to help and support our local children.
A number of charities are already working to provide help and support for certain children with special needs. For example, Auditory Verbal UK is making great progress in helping to implement specialist early interventions to support deaf babies and children in learning to talk and listen. Roughly 80% of children who attend at least two years of the charity’s pre-school programme achieve the same level of spoken language as their hearing peers. Through Government investment, the charity would be able to aid considerably more deaf children to reach the same level. It is a great charity that supports not only deaf children but the whole support system. A number of charities, third-sector groups and volunteers work with children who have important issues that need to be addressed.
Mr Robin Walker (Worcester) (Con)
Does my hon. Friend agree that investment to support organisations such as Auditory Verbal UK and the therapies that it can provide is excellent value for money? If children are reached with the right support early on, they can engage in mainstream education and benefit from it much more than if they are left with those needs on entry into primary school.
I completely agree. We could not function as a country without our voluntary sector—it is one of the wheels that keeps the country going—but we need to invest in it, so that it can save lots of money in the long term. That is absolutely right.
A specialist SEND workforce will make positive changes to our country. We must ensure that we allow a space for those children with special educational needs and disabilities to reach their full potential in society.
Mr Virendra Sharma (in the Chair)
I intend to call the Front-Bench spokespeople at about 10.40 am, and we have about nine speakers. I will not set a time limit now; I leave it to hon. Members to discipline themselves.
I declare an interest, Mr Sharma—my wife is Dr Cynthia Pinto, chair of the committee on the Division of Educational and Child Psychology, and she is active in the Association of Educational Psychologists, so you can imagine what our breakfast conversations are like. I welcome the Minister, who has had responsibility for disabilities in the past, which gives her an understanding of some of the issues we face. She has also been a Parliamentary Private Secretary in the Treasury, so she knows where the money is buried, which is extremely helpful. I thank Professor Vivian Hill from the Institute of Education at University College London, who has provided a number of us with briefings on educational psychology.
I want to draw attention to the issues facing educational psychologists. The chief inspector of education identified that the demand and need for educational psychology services from schools and families, to support early intervention and preventive work, has significantly increased. The inspector’s report also identified that there is a huge geographical variation—to which my hon. Friend the Member for Swansea West (Geraint Davies) referred—in access to EPs, and noted that 60% of local authority EHCP assessments are not being completed within the 20-week timeframe as required.
Alternative provision has been mentioned. The Ofsted report last November identified that more children are being referred to alternative provision, but often because of the lack of access to specialist services in mainstream schools. Let us look at the stats on the increased numbers of education, health and care plans being issued. During 2021, 93,000 initial requests were made for assessment for EHCP—up from 76,000 in 2020. It is the highest number since data was first collected in 2016. His Majesty’s chief inspector of education reported that 1.5 million pupils were identified with SEND in 2022—an increase of 71% on the previous year; I found that staggering. The number of EHCPs has also grown by 51% since 2014-15. I think we are all experiencing that in our constituencies, as we receive representations from parents struggling to gain access to the planning processes.
Mr Virendra Sharma (in the Chair)
Looking at the time and the Front Bench, I would appreciate it if Members would stick to four minutes.
I will keep to your timeframe, Mr Sharma. I welcome the opportunity to speak in this important debate, and I congratulate the hon. Member for Swansea West (Geraint Davies) on introducing it and on his work chairing the APPG.
One of my first visits as the MP for North West Norfolk was to Greenpark Academy in King’s Lynn. The first issue that the headteacher raised with me was access to special needs provision and speech and language therapy for pupils who, at that school, often come from disadvantaged backgrounds. On a more recent visit to Whitefriars School, which has just been given a good Ofsted rating—it would have been outstanding if it had been a graded inspection—the school’s special needs unit was making a real difference in helping children to improve communication skills, often from a very low base, as a number arrived at the school non-verbal.
From visiting those and many other schools across my constituency, particularly in rural parts of North West Norfolk, the need to provide improved support is clear. The ability to communicate is fundamental for children to make friends, learn and realise their potential. The evidence is also strong that without the right support to help people with speech and language needs, children are at increased risk of poor educational attainment, mental health issues and poor employment outcomes.
Today’s debate is taking place because the current access to speech and language therapy needs to improve dramatically. Figures from the Royal College of Speech and Language Therapists that were shared ahead of the debate show that over 67,000 children were on a waiting list for speech and language therapy, with more than a third waiting over 18 weeks. As we have heard, many more are waiting over a year or, indeed, two years. That situation is not acceptable; covid has made it worse and we need to address it. Given those real challenges, I welcome the SEND and AP improvement plan that was published earlier this month, with its focus on speech and communication issues. There is a welcome new commitment for a joint DFE and DHSC approach to SEND workforce planning, although I hope the timetable set out in that paper can be accelerated.
I agree with everything my hon. Friend has said, and would add Suffolk to the list of places that would like to be a pathfinder area. Does he agree that early intervention is vital, even though there are now more EHCPs than there were? The earlier that support for children starts, the more likely a positive outcome; getting that support is vital.
Indeed, I do. My right hon. Friend has done a lot of work in this area, not least with his private Member’s Bill.
The plan has a welcome focus on expanded training, including: 5,000 early years staff gaining accredited qualifications; an increase in the capacity of specialists, with two more training cohorts of educational psychologists; and the new leadership level SENDCO qualification. I am glad to see that it also commits to publishing the first of three best practice guides, including for Nuffield early language intervention, which has made a real difference in a number of my schools in Norfolk.
Finally, I welcome the new deal that provides £70 million in additional funding from the Department, in conjunction with Norfolk County Council, which will help to increase funding for special educational needs places. It will develop more specialist resource bases and AP in mainstream schools, which I hope will include schools in North West Norfolk, as well as building two more special schools.
In conclusion, getting this right is vital because children have only one opportunity when it comes to their education. We need to do all we can to help them realise their potential. The focus now must be on implementing those plans.
It is a pleasure to serve under your chairship, Mr Sharma. SEND services in Devon have been in serious crisis for a long time, probably three or four years, with the situation deteriorating lately. Last year, Devon County Council apologised for failing to improve SEND services, and promised that things would improve and that it would redouble its efforts. We are continuing to see a problem around a lack of political leadership and of oversight at the council. My postbag is heavy with correspondence from constituents who are at their wits’ end trying to get the support and educational placements that children need.
The wait times for assessments are far beyond the statutory 20 weeks. The lack of educational psychologists is leaving families uncertain, having to juggle work commitments and looking after their child at the same time. It is definitely leading to people being outside of the workforce who would otherwise be fulfilling an important role in it. The looming threat in Devon of these services being placed in special measures, or removed from the council’s remit, shows that things must change. The promise of more money in the forthcoming council budget is welcome. The Government’s recent announcement of a new SEND school at Cranbrook is again welcome, but we need to ensure that taxpayers’ money is being spent effectively to deliver the SEND placements that our children deserve.
I have had constituents contact me to highlight situations where a child is allocated a placement that is wholly unsuitable for them, and the child cannot take it up but remains on the school roll, with the funding also remaining assigned to that school. We need to ensure that money follows the child and that appropriate frontline services are delivered regardless of where the child then moves. I have seen for myself in East Devon that SEND pupils are being taught in cupboards and storage rooms, and I know that that is not unique to my part of Devon, because I have also seen it reported on the BBC. We should not allow that to continue. I cannot help but admire the parents who are pushing Devon County Council and the Government on this. Devon SEND Parents and Carers for Change staged a protest at county hall in Exeter last month, and they are trying to shine a spotlight on some of these failings.
Mr Virendra Sharma (in the Chair)
I am now formally introducing a four-minute time limit.
20 of 48 shown
The Minister will be aware that there have also been three petitions. One is about mandatory training for all teaching staff engaged with special educational needs, again to ensure identification and early intervention.
As for parliamentary activity, I am very pleased that the Chamber Engagement Team got in touch with me about this debate and asked people to send in their experiences. I was more than pleased that 1,800 responses were received from parents, practitioners, and other adults who have engaged with the system, wherever they live, and faced similar challenges across the piece. Those challenges generally included huge waiting lists for support for their children. Obviously, the longer the delay, the more it costs to get people back on track and the greater the struggles in adulthood and the impact on life chances.
There is a second issue about the threshold for getting support: how ill is someone, or are they ill enough, as it were? “Ill” is probably the wrong word here, but is someone’s condition sufficient to satisfy the criteria for early intervention? A lot of parents feel neglected, unsupported and not understood. They probably think there is some sort of differential diagnosis; I do not know.
There is also an issue about fighting for diagnosis itself to start with, and often when there is a plan ready to go, the support is not in place to deliver it. Clearly, many people have to resort to going private, which sometimes means worse provision, but obviously at a cost, as they have to pay for it.
There is a special issue, which the Minister will be aware of, for girls and young women, who might be misdiagnosed as having mental health problems. Good plans are put in place, but are not followed through, or people are deprived of their plan owing to changes being made, perhaps to resources, so the vital education to give them the platform they need to succeed in later life is not provided.
People can also be ping-ponged between different services, which causes confusion, delay and uncertainty, and sometimes there are issues over sharing information from specialists with the school. The information has to go through the parents, rather than the school, and if a second language is involved, effective delivery can be impeded.
There is also an issue about coming up with feasible plans, which are not optimal plans owing to lack of resources, where people say, “We would like to do this, but we can’t, so we will do that. It’s not quite what is needed, but it’s all we can afford.”
Obviously, there were also a lot of positive replies, because there is a galaxy of excellent people out there doing their best to provide an excellent service to meet these needs. However, they are finding it difficult to cope. I do not want in any way to criticise the people in the special educational needs service who are doing such a fine job and need our support, but there is postcode lottery, because where someone lives determines how good a service they receive, according to resources and the availability of skilled staff. In some places, there are good networks where people have a good experience of different specialisms working together optimally to deliver excellent outputs for those in need; in other places, the experience is not so good.
I will not go through a list of specific examples, but the people who wrote to me were clearly saying, “We need funding, early intervention, a joined-up system, training for teachers and an evidence-based approach, particularly in relation to behaviours that appear in girls and young women.” Early intervention is of primary concern for the economy, but also with respect to releasing parents who often cannot work because they are looking after their children owing to the fact that the service is not there to deliver for the child. That means parents staying at home who could be at work. We are thinking about growth and how we manage the economy, so that is another consideration.
Let me turn to the reaction to the special educational needs and alternative provision plan. Various sectors have criticised the plan’s lack of urgency and ambition. Nobody is saying that what is in the plan is not commendable, but a crisis has been building for many years and we need to get on with addressing it. Therefore, this is another opportunity for the Government to listen to our concerns and to build the support to drive forward with greater speed.
Many people have commented that they have been waiting years for the Government to act to fix the broken special educational needs system. They are now saying, “Well is this all it is? We need more sooner.” That includes the SEND in The Specialists coalition of 128 organisations that I have mentioned. They are talking about the number of specialists, rising demand, and the new demands after covid. Certainly, the Royal College of Speech and Language and the surveys that we have commissioned have found that, interestingly, middle-class parents who had children with speech and language difficulties often saw an improvement in their child’s performance. That is because the parents would be at home, working from laptops, and spending quality time with the children. There is an issue there about having more flexible working more generally in the economy, as it would help productivity, and perhaps reduce costs and encourage better targeting.
In contrast, of course, the poorer children did not fare so well. Perhaps they had a single parent who was on a zero-hours contract, who did not have much time to spend with the child, and who did not have proper internet access that they could afford—there is an issue there about universal wi-fi clouds that the Government might want to think about. During covid, poorer children fared a lot worse in general; and specifically, those with speech and language difficulties deteriorated quite quickly. It is certainly worth considering that differential output. Perhaps I will send this research to the Minister.
This debate is about just one aspect of the plan, which is the specialist workforce. We welcome the Government’s commitment to work in a collegiate way alongside children, young people, families and other providers in the SEND system. The Departments for Education and of Health and Social Care set out a clear timetable for SEND workforce planning. We have a steering group that will move forward by 2023.
Wearing my speech and language hat, let me welcome the Early Language and Support for Every Child pathfinders, and the early identification and support for children with speech and language difficulties. The royal college is pleased that it was involved with the NHS and the Department for Education in that scoping, and I hope that it will continue to be involved in the Department in the future through the alternative provision specialist taskforce.
Let me lay out the main commitments that I am looking for from the Minister. First, we want a commitment to have the meeting with the signatories of the 16 all-party groups that has been promised and also a commitment by the Government to speak to the all-party group on speech and language difficulties in a separate meeting about what is happening, so that they can be quizzed by those in the industry. Secondly, we want a commitment to give the SEND in The Specialists coalition a place on the SEND workforce steering group, as it is important that the industry is engaged with the civil service and the Departments to get the best, most practicable plan possible.
Thirdly, we want the Government to commit to come up with a plan on how they will improve access to the specialist workforce for children, young people and families right now. We have talked about the 2023 and 2025 milestones, but, obviously, children grow up very quickly and they need that support now. Perhaps the Minister can elaborate on precisely what is happening in the meantime to bring forward tailored support. We want to see a broad approach—a holistic approach—to the definition of the SEND specialist workforce, because there are quite variety of people involved. Then there is the issue of recruitment and retention, on which the Minister may wish to touch. There is an issue about people leaving the service from the NHS and from the profession generally. We need not only to recruit and train enough people to build a force, but to stop people leaving by providing them with acceptable and enjoyable working conditions.
Finally, on behalf of the 1,800 people who have written in, I wish to question the Minister about funding and the Government response to our funding letter of 2021, which I mentioned earlier. The Government then said that the right funding was fundamental to accessing speech and language therapy. Will the Minister elaborate on what she thinks will be sufficient funding for a SEND workforce plan, to ensure that the speech and language therapy workforce is trained, developed, retained, supervised and supported to develop the necessary clinical specialisms and leadership roles? Will she mention something about student numbers coming into the workforce, and also address some of the reasons why people are leaving the workforce?
Perhaps the Minister could also say what her expectations are for accountability and local systems coming together on joint provision. How do we ensure accountability and make sure the resources are there to enable all children and young people with special educational needs and speech, language and communication needs and/or swallowing needs get timely access to the speech and language therapy they require? That would include provision for children and young people who need special educational needs support, as well as those with education, health and care plans.
I am glad to see a large number of Members here who want to get involved in the debate, so I will end my comments there. I look forward to a response from the Minister.
Inclusion is not always the best thing for the child with special needs, nor the rest of the children in the class. Both miss out on education. We have to face the fact that while mainstream inclusion is important, some children need a high level of specialist support, which can only be provided in special needs schools or in alternative provision.
We need more SEND and alternative provision across Hastings and Rye, especially AP for secondary-aged children. We have a significant number of primary and secondary-aged children with high-level needs. It is very difficult to access EHC plans, and the waiting list for CAMHS locally is now two years. It is just not good enough. Early intervention is vital in ensuring that the right support is given at the right time, so that each child with SEND can fulfil their potential and become full, active and productive members of our communities.
I welcome the Government SEND and alternative provision improvement plan published earlier this month, which will help to deliver new standards to improve identification of the needs and expectations of the level of support that would be available in local areas. The plan creates additional funding of more than £10 billion by 2023-24, which is an increase of more than 50%, to support and help young people with SEND. It is also encouraging that the improvement plan will create a new leadership special educational needs national professional qualification—a SENCO NPQ—which will ensure that teachers have the training that they need to provide the right support for children. That is in addition to expanded training for staff, but we need those staff.
To address the demand levels, it is necessary to deal with the backlog, which is a consequence of the pandemic. Ofsted highlights that speech and language therapy has one of the longer waiting lists and that there are reductions in the service provided. The impact of covid-19 has only exacerbated those problems: demand for speech and language therapists increased after the pandemic because of the additional 94,000 children with speech, language and communication needs in 2021-22. Young children and teens rely on that therapy as an essential way to develop social and articulative skills; if their needs are not dealt with effectively, that section of society could be isolated.
Also interesting—I wonder whether others have experienced this—is the significant increase in the number of SEND tribunals, which becomes incredibly expensive for the local authorities. This is worrying. It is interesting that Professor Hill has identified this from the various statistics that have been brought out, and it was raised in a debate in the main Chamber a couple of months ago about the unmet mental health needs of children and young people. A record number of children and young people are being referred to NHS services for mental health difficulties. In the previous debate on this issue, MP after MP reported the issues and demand on CAMHS that are overwhelming it; that is increasingly worrying.
An increased number of children and young people are being permanently suspended or excluded from school. Some Members might have listened to the reports this morning about the number of “ghost” children, who are no longer in school. The figure of 20% was absolutely staggering. Covid has obviously had an impact, and there is a continuing impact on mental health, but local authorities struggle to maintain levels of support services for families in particular.
I also found interesting the evidence that local authorities struggle to recruit educational psychologists. The recent local government ombudsman report shows that 70% of local authorities are now struggling to recruit EPs. The Government have recognised that; it is one issue that is being addressed in the future of our workforce plan for skilled workers and the recruitment of staff. It has also been recognised that the recruitment of staff from overseas can assist us during this period while we struggle to recruit.
Many local authorities are now relying on locum cover from private providers but, as hon. Members will appreciate, that can be extremely expensive compared with direct investment. Educational psychologists have raised with the Government the issue of adequate funding of the services overall, which my hon. Friend the Member for Swansea West mentioned. Specifically for EPs, the Government responded in December with £21 million in additional funding, which was welcome. That will be for intakes from 2024, but the problem is that the core funding is inadequate—it has not been increased since 2020.
Let us look at the figures put out by the British Psychological Society, of which the Division of Educational and Child Psychology is a part. The announcement of £21 million for 400 additional educational psychologists is definitely a step in the right direction, but the BPS says that it really does not go far enough to close the workforce gap. The figure that I find shocking is that we are now at the stage where in 2017 there were about 3,000 educational psychologists working in England; on average, that is the equivalent of one educational psychologist for every 3,500 children and young people between the ages of five and 19. Again, there was one for every 5,000 for those between the ages of nought and 25 —the plan period. Therefore, the demand is for a greater increase of investment in educational psychologists to increase the numbers because of the increasing demands.
I will raise one issue that is specific to my own patch, but which may be reflected in other constituencies. I have 2,400 refugees—asylum seekers—in hotels in my constituency, including many children, who go into local schools. I have toured the hotels and done advice surgeries in them, and what has been reported back from the schools and from the discussions I am having with families is that a number of those children, who are largely from war zones, are suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder. That is placing an increased burden on individual schools. The teachers welcome rising to that challenge, but they need additional resources.
I would welcome a discussion with the Government—maybe all MPs have this situation in their constituencies—about what additional resources could be targeted at particular areas so that they can overcome this period, which I am sure will be temporary, but requires resources at the moment. The message is clear from the DECP and others: additional resources need to be specifically targeted at the recruitment and training of educational psychologists to meet this growing demand and, exactly as the hon. Member for Hastings and Rye (Sally-Ann Hart) said, to give children the life chances that they desperately need.
That join-up, which is the holy grail in Government, across health, education and social care at national level is vital. As the royal college points out, that has to be accompanied by sufficient funding to train, retain and develop the workforce. DFE—again in partnership with NHS England, which I welcome—is pioneering pathfinders for early language and support as part of the £70 million change programme. I previously raised with the Minister the potential for Norfolk and Waveney to be one of the nine pilot areas. I look forward to meeting my integrated care board shortly to discuss what we might be able to bring there. I would welcome further opportunity to discuss that with the Minister, and more information about the process for selecting those areas.
It is not all gloom; there are some examples of best practice. My constituent, Danielle Punter, has written books and a blog—autability.co.uk—with tips on education and support in understanding neurodivergence. Danielle pointed out last month that when partial school closures happen as a result of lockdown or strikes, it is often special needs school pupils who are most affected, because those schools need to be fully staffed in order for children with a high level of SEND requirements to get the best possible care, otherwise they need to stay at home. In short, we need to get to grips with some of these repeated failures, particularly in Devon, and that will require political leadership and political oversight.