Apprenticeships, Skills, Children and Learning Bill

My Lords, it would be helpful to do a note to the Committee on the role of the corporate parent in this. We are placing duties and responsibilities on home local education authorities that are also the corporate parents. It would be helpful to have a note for the Committee on that matter. There are some real benefits to the approach that we are adopting, in being clear about the responsibilities of the home local education authority. I am very sorry that Members of the Committee are having problems with their computers, because we rely on the expert work of our House of Lords computer team. They are fabulous, and they usually do a great job for us. I offer noble Lords some reassurance about the important amendments that we are discussing. I shall take some time to address some of the concerns that have been expressed. Amendment 126, as we heard from the noble Lord, Lord Elton, seeks to ensure that local authorities work to identify young people in juvenile custody in their area for whom it is necessary to make special educational provision. Our guiding principles in these reforms have always been to ensure consistency between provision in and out of custody. However, it is not always practical to replicate the assessment and statementing regime for children and young people in custody. The population in custody is highly mobile, as we heard from the noble Baroness, Lady Howe, and young people generally spend only a short time in a particular institution, which would not allow time for the statementing process. I know that noble Lords have been concerned about that. The Bill as drafted requires that authorities will use their best endeavours to ensure the delivery of appropriate special educational provision. This will be provision corresponding as closely as possible to the provision in the statement. That is the thrust of what we are trying to achieve. The statement will be the starting point; there will be consideration of whether the provision that it contains remains appropriate and how much of it can be delivered within the time the young person is due to spend in the institution. The Bill also imposes obligations upon the home authority to transfer a copy of the person’s SEN statement to the host authority, in which the YOI institution is located, to enable the host authority to determine appropriate special educational provision. That transfer of information is absolutely key, as noble Lords have suggested. It is important that that is timely. We have also made provision to ensure that a child’s statement of special educational needs, which was maintained before the person's detention, must be reinstated or reviewed on their release. That relates to the concern about young people returning to their home environment and whether the provision will be there for them. There are strong new duties that will benefit young people with SEN in custody. Of course, Ofsted inspections will make sure that they are applied in practice. With those reassurances, I hope that Amendment 126 can be withdrawn. Amendment 128 would ensure that each child and young person in juvenile custody is provided with a personal learning programme. That document is key, as we have heard. Young people in juvenile custody already have individual learning plans as part of their wider sentence and resettlement plans, which are regularly updated. Those are produced very early on in the process. The information contained in the plan follows the person through custody. As my noble friend has already said, the e-Asset system is so important because it can operate in a timely way. That will continue to be the case once the provisions of the Bill are in force. We will set out in statutory guidance—a high level of authority—that local authorities should ensure through the arrangements that they make with learning providers that all young people receive a learning assessment—again, something that the Committee has been very concerned about. That will examine literacy and numeracy skills and will include a basic screen for special educational needs and learning difficulties. It will inform decisions about how the provision is best tailored to meet their needs alongside the educational information from the home authority. It will bring together information from the home authority—the people who know the child—and put it alongside information garnered in the custodial environment. The information will be recorded in an individual learning plan that will continue to form part of the person’s wider sentence plan. I would be happy to check the exact format of that plan—how it is laid out and so forth—because in e-Asset, that will be the standard approach. I hope to be able to share an outline version of the statutory guidance that lies behind all that with the Committee before Report. Key to all of this is the role of Ofsted. Ofsted plans to introduce a new methodology for inspection of education in young offender institutions to look at progress being made by offenders. I appreciate the Committee's anxiety about what will really happen, but we have to have mechanisms and levers to ensure that the guidance and the duties that we place are put into action. Ofsted will be using that new methodology, which will include inspection of young people's learning assessments, individual learning plans and the involvement of tutors. It will look forensically at what really happens. The Bill also strengthens provisions to support the person’s resettlement into the community, which is so important when people move and spend only a short time in a young offender institution. New Section 562B places a new duty on the home local authority to take steps to promote the fulfilment of the young person's learning potential while they are in juvenile custody and on their release. Where appropriate, the home authority must make arrangements for the provision of education or training on the person's release from juvenile custody. I believe that that duty will help to ensure the continuity of learning, which many have raised as a concern. With that, I hope that the amendment will not be pressed. I would like to offer a little more reassurance on Amendments 133 and 134. I agree that it is essential for both home and host authorities to have all available information about a young person. That is why we have new Section 562E, which provides for the sharing of information connected with the provision of education or training for detained persons. That includes any information relating to a person's special educational needs. New Section 562F provides for the transfer of copies of any SEN statements, and makes provision to ensure that the host authority is aware that a person has a statement and that the host local authority will need to ensure that it has a copy of the statement to fulfil its "best endeavours" duty in new Section 562, which is a key part of the new duty on the person’s home authority. We recognise that, with different authorities involved, this could be complex. The youth justice system’s recent development of the e-Asset programme, the secure e-mail system that we have heard about, presents new opportunities to make information transfer much simpler, more efficient and more timely. We will be clear on how information exchange should occur, particularly in the guidance that we are producing. I hope that with these and any further reassurances the noble Lords would like me to offer—I will do my best—the noble Lord will feel able to withdraw his amendment.