My Lords, the draft code of practice gives guidance on Part 3 of the Children and Families Act 2014. The code has been approved by the other place and I welcome the opportunity to introduce the debate in Committee today. First, I want to acknowledge the extensive time that many noble Lords have given to discussion of the Act and the emerging code. Together we created an excellent Act, one that will transform the way in which support is provided for children and young people and their families. The code of practice will bring added impetus to achieving that aim.
Our vision for children with special educational needs and disabilities is the same as for all children and young people—that they achieve well in their early years, at school and in college, and lead happy and fulfilled lives. The new code will play a vital role in underpinning our special educational needs and disability reforms. The reforms will bring a new approach, one that places the views of children, young people and parents at the heart of the system and joins up education, health and care services for children and young people. These important principles run right through the code. For children and young people this means that their experience will be of a less confrontational and more efficient system. Their needs will be identified early with support put in place quickly, and parents will know what services they can reasonably expect. Children and young people and their parents or carers will be fully involved in decisions about their support and what they want to achieve, with an increased focus on life outcomes, including employment and greater independence.
The Department for Education and the Department of Health have worked to ensure that local authorities and local health partners work together to plan and commission services for these children and young people. The code is the result of more than a year of extensive consultation, and we took great care to listen to those who must have regard to the code to make it truly accessible. Additionally, we offered stakeholders the opportunity to comment on revisions of the code before running a final consultation in Spring 2014. I am grateful to the Joint Committee on Statutory Instruments and the Secondary Legislation Scrutiny Committee for their consideration of the draft code. Each raised one particular, and different, issue.
The Joint Committee on Statutory Instruments reported a concern in relation to local authority decisions on personal budgets. I wrote to the noble Baroness, Lady Hughes of Stretford, on the same issue following our debate on the personal budgets regulations. I can now confirm, in response to the Joint Committee on Statutory Instruments’ report, that we will be amending the regulations to give greater clarity to the decision-making process, meeting the point raised by the Committee. The Secondary Legislation Scrutiny Committee expressed concern that the code may be too long and complex to be of use to families. I should point out that parents are not the code’s key audience. The chief audience is the range of bodies with statutory duties to fulfil and which must have regard to it. The changes that we have made to the code, including ones that have added to its length, respond to specific feedback on promoting clarity from those who need to have regard to it. The code covers most of the statutory provisions of the current system as well as significant new duties. It replaces three separate sets of guidance and contains a stronger emphasis on and links to the Equality Act 2010. It was absolutely clear that interested parties did not see shortening as a priority. Having a code that gave a clear explanation of the law and guidance that would speak to the wide range of statutory audiences was what mattered.
However, supporting parents in understanding the new system is of course key. The legislation ensures access to information, advice and support. We have provided £30 million over two years to recruit and train independent supporters, and we are co-producing with parents’ organisations a separate guide to the code specifically for parents, and separate materials for young people, both for publication as the reforms come into force.
6.15 pm
The reforms have been tested in a number of local pathfinders since 2012 and local authorities have been preparing to put them into practice from September this year. Support is being provided to local authorities, including advice from regional champions and a range of delivery partners with specialist expertise. Some £45.2 million is being provided to local authorities in 2014-15 to help meet the additional costs of implementing the reforms, with a further £32 million indicative funding in 2015-16. This is in addition to the £70 million SEN reform grant in 2014-15 to help local authorities plan for the reforms. Surveys of local authority readiness and visits show that local areas are prepared to put the reforms into practice from September. We have been clear that we expect the change from the current to the new system to take place gradually and have been consulting on transitional arrangements to achieve this.
From September this year, all requests for assessments of special educational needs for those who do not have a statement or an LDA will be considered under the new education, health and care assessment arrangements. We intend that by 1 September 2016 young people in further education who currently receive support as the result of an LDA will transfer to an EHC plan where one is needed. Children and young people with statements will be transferred by 1 April 2018. All local authorities will be required to ensure that certain groups of children are transferred to the new system by particular points
during the transition period. This will ensure an ordered transition and maintain protections for children and young people. Draft guidance was recently made available to local authorities.
I am confident that the new code will play a key role in helping to put our reforms into practice, equipping those who work with children and young people to help secure the better outcomes they deserve. The provisions in the Children and Families Act on support for those in youth custody do not come into force until April 2015. Regulations will be made setting out the detail. Noble Lords will be heartened to know that Katy Weeks, a key member of the Bill team for this legislation, has been seconded to the Council for Disabled Children, which is working with the Department for Education and the Ministry of Justice on this. We intend to issue draft regulations for consultation later this year. We will then revise the guidance in the code to reflect the final regulations and place it before Parliament for approval under the negative procedure early in the New Year.
More generally, we will be keeping the guidance in the code of practice under review, allowing proper time for the reforms to bed down, particularly as they are being implemented gradually from September. Noble Lords will recall that we made provision in the Children and Families Act for subsequent versions of the code to be approved under the negative procedure to enable the code to be kept up to date more easily. Now is the time to move forward. As there is such broad support for the reforms and a high state of local authority readiness, I urge noble Lords to support the code of practice.