Apprenticeships, Skills, Children and Learning Bill

With the leave of the House, may I say that I am pleased with the tone of the responses from the hon. Members for South Holland and The Deepings (Mr. Hayes) and for Bristol, West (Stephen Williams)? The hon. Member for South Holland and The Deepings rightly said that he wanted to see the linking of transport with other provision, and we absolutely agree with him. That was always the intention, as I think he knows, but we just needed to make it explicit in the Bill. The hon. Member for Bristol, West made an important point about complaints. We want to become more responsive to local complaints, in relation not only to transport duty but to a whole range of other local authority activities, in order to ensure that local authorities improve the services that they offer to the people they serve. We think that that is best achieved by going through a local process before going to the Secretary of State. Clause 54 creates a new power for local authorities to amend their transport policy statements in-year, in response to complaints or direction by the Secretary of State, and to publish updated statements and a description of the change. However, we shall require complaints to go through a local complaints process first, before they can be considered further. During the passage of the Bill, we were lobbied by the Association of Colleges and by Skill, and we think that the amendments will help to address their concerns. The key point is to ensure that local authorities are accountable to the people they represent, and we believe that it is important for these complaints to go through a local process, so that the authority has an opportunity to respond to them and to react to any concerns. If the person concerned—either the person with learning difficulties or disabilities, or the person charged with their care—is not satisfied, however, the escalation process, which should be a common feature of all complaints procedures, will give them recourse to the Secretary of State. To give the hon. Member for Bristol, West a direct answer to his question, we do not want to dictate the point at which any escalation takes place; we want to give people the opportunity to resolve any problems locally, as that is the best way to ensure that services are better locally on the ground.