Education and Inspections Bill

I wish to speak to my Amendment No. 179, which follows on from the noble Baroness’s amendments. My amendment about special educational needs has two parts. The first part would provide that those who take decisions on whether children should be statemented, and to what extent, should be separate from those who provide the funding. The noble Baroness argued that point, which is consistent with the Conservative Party report to which she referred. I came to that conclusion from experience, knowing what a problem it has been for local education authorities to provide the necessary funding. This has led to a rearguard action on the part of local authorities sometimes to resist legitimate cases because they just do not the money, as they see it. Antagonistic, confrontational and adversarial relationships can develop between parents and a local authority. That must be wrong. The Government’s increase in funding for special educational needs has been a material help, but immediately after the Commons Select Committee reported the Minister said what the Government’s attitude was. Another person spoke about the difficulty that she had had in getting a child statemented. These amendments were tabled before the Commons Select Committee reported, but I note that that Select Committee recommended: "““There is an inbuilt conflict of interest in that it is the duty of the local authority to assess the needs of the child and to arrange provision to meet those needs and all within limited resources. The link must be broken between assessment and funding of provision””," which is what my amendment is about. I describe the second part of the amendment as the Velcro part of the amendment. It would provide that children with a statement of special educational needs should be allocated funding on an individual basis, and that it should go with them wherever they go. It is their statement and their resources. In proposing that, I had two objectives: first, that a child with a statement is welcomed rather than seen as a burden because the funding to support that child is made available; and, secondly, to ensure—in saying this I am conscious that schools are honourable places—that the money allocated to that child with special needs is spent on them. In making that point, I note that Ofsted, in its evidence to the Select Committee, said that there was evidence that some delegated funding for schools was not being spent on special educational needs. I further note that the Minister, in his evidence, said that it was, "““crucial to see that money intended for SEN is spent on SEN””." The Select Committee recommended: "““The fundamental problems in the statementing process that prevent funding from following the child should be resolved as a matter of urgency””." The Velcro-ing of the statement to the child is particularly helpful if the child moves between local authorities and if it is to the child’s advantage to spend part of his time in one school and another part in another school or in a pupil referral unit. It enables parents who feel that a school is not serving their child well to secure their transfer to another school without that school having qualms about whether the funding is available. I do not expect the Minister to agree to those two amendments right away, but I hope that he will accept that these are the kind of changes that have the strong support of the Select Committee and other quarters of the House.