House of Commons · Westminster Hall
22 March 2023 · 11 other contributors · 13,441 words
Opened by Geraint Davies Lab Swansea West
Responding minister: Claire Coutinho
Summarised by AI from the official record, so it can contain mistakes.
Geraint Davies raised concerns about special educational needs and disabilities: specialist workforce in Westminster Hall. A government minister responded.
Key points
Key requests to Government
The lead MP calls on the government to commit to meeting with all-party groups to discuss special educational needs, engage the SEND in The Specialists coalition in planning, provide a plan for improving access to specialist support immediately, define the SEND specialist workforce holistically, address recruitment and retention issues, and elaborate on funding commitments to ensure timely speech and language therapy.
MPs spoke in turn to share their views and ask questions. Here's what each person said.
Opened the debate
The debate focuses on the urgent need for early intervention in speech and language difficulties, which can improve school performance and reduce social costs. There are significant challenges including long waiting lists, unclear thresholds for support, misdiagnosis of girls and young women as having mental health problems, and a lack of resources leading to suboptimal plans. Parents often feel neglected and unsupported, with many resorting to private services at great cost.
The MP noted that his constituency of Wantage and Didcot had the most signatures on a petition regarding SEND issues. He pointed out problems with Oxfordshire County Council's response to parents, suggesting a need for better service delivery despite additional funding of £2.6 billion. He also advocated for initial teacher training to improve handling of children with special educational needs.
She highlighted the significant growth in need for children with special educational needs and disabilities, citing a 50% increase since 2016. She pointed out that support is insufficient, leading to battles for diagnoses and subsequent support, often multiple times throughout a child's education.
James Wild highlighted the need for improved access to special needs provision and speech and language therapy, especially in rural areas. He noted over 67,000 children were on waiting lists for speech and language therapy, with many waiting over 18 weeks. He welcomed the SEND and AP improvement plan but urged faster implementation.
The MP discussed staffing issues in Northern Ireland, noting that 67,000 children have some form of SEN and 19,000 have received a statement for additional support. He highlighted the decrease in educational psychologists by 24% over five years to 106 from 140, and called for mandatory SEN training for all teaching staff. I was hoping the Minister might deal with this—I requested that she share conclusions in relation to the mainland with the relevant Department and with the Minister back home.
The demand for educational psychology services has increased significantly, with a shortage of educational psychologists. There is a huge geographical variation in access to these services, and many local authorities are struggling to recruit EPs. The number of SEND tribunals has also grown, placing additional financial pressure on local authorities. Educational psychologists have raised concerns about adequate funding for their services. I am happy to engage in any lobbying of Treasury Ministers to get the message across that early investment eventually saves money further downstream. The speaker raised concerns about the drying-up of funding from local government to voluntary organisations, suggesting that this issue should be addressed in discussions with the Minister.
Agrees with the previous speaker's points and highlights the importance of early intervention in supporting children with special educational needs.
Matthew Pennycook highlighted the lengthy waiting times for speech and language therapists due to workforce shortages, impacting children with SEN. He agreed that immediate recruitment of more therapists is necessary.
Mr Gibson highlighted the importance of addressing the significant delays in CAMHS assessments for children with special educational needs, noting that more than 300 under-18s are awaiting an autism assessment and over 20% have been waiting almost three years. He welcomed additional funding of £6.19 million for SEN provision but expressed disappointment at the lack of records on SEN training among teaching staff.
Parents face challenges in securing timely and appropriate support for their children with special educational needs, highlighting cases of missed assessments and insufficient intervention. She stressed the importance of recognising teaching assistants as professionals and advocating for better working conditions and fair remuneration.
Richard Foord described a crisis in Devon's SEND services with long wait times for assessments and a lack of educational psychologists. He mentioned unsuitable placements and called for more political leadership and oversight to improve the situation, highlighting examples of best practice such as Danielle Punter's work on neurodivergence.
Robin Walker supported investment in organisations like Auditory Verbal UK, stressing its value in early intervention for children's education and lifelong benefits. Mr Walker praised the work of teaching assistants in special educational needs settings, highlighting their passion and dedication despite facing challenges such as assault. He discussed the importance of early intervention and provision for speech and language therapy in the early years, citing improvements in his constituency but noting ongoing issues with space constraints leading to reduced nursery provision at a primary special school. He also called for better support for children transitioning into adulthood, including career guidance and preparation for work. Our specialist schools face a challenge because they must have very large numbers of teaching assistants to provide individual support for pupils, and funding does not keep pace with the increases in pay awards for teaching assistants as the living wage rises.
Government Response
Claire CoutinhoIt is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Sharma. First, I congratulate the hon. Member for Swansea West (Geraint Davies) on securing a debate on this incredibly important subject. It is wonderful to see so many people in agreement about what is needed, and to have seen the expertise on show today. I hope people can see from our SEND and alternative provision improvement plan the seriousness of the Government in trying to respond to the needs of children with special educational needs and disabilities across the country. The hon. Member rightly talked about the importance of early language, which we know feeds into children's overall learning and literacy. He talked about the importance of education and health working together, and I am pleased to say that we jointly published that report, and that the Department of Health is very much working hand in glove with us on the plans. I have had the privilege to meet some of the galaxy of professionals who support children and young people with SEND. Whether they are in early years, schools, colleges, health and care settings, or specialist and alternative provision, those are some of the best visits that I do; it is a joy to meet a group of people who are so dedicated, skilled and passionate about meeting the needs of their children and young people. The SEND and alternative provision improvement plan is meant to support the entitlement set out in 2014 through a much clearer local and national focus on the strategy for how we can plan to meet those needs. The funding has increased by more than 50% over the last few years. We have announced an additional £21 million to train more educational psychologists. We have committed to working with the Department of Health on a joint approach. In the improvement plan, we announced that we will partner with NHS England to include early language and support for every child pathfinders within our £70 million change programme. We are also looking at family hubs. We have support for Nuffield early language intervention in primary schools. On the mainstream workforce, we are setting out best practice guides, starting with autism, mental health and wellbeing and early language, to ensure that the wider workforce all have that specialist ability as well. As well as setting out best practice guides, we are training 5,000 early years special educational needs co-ordinators to help with early identification. I would like to turn briefly to mental health, which has been a real challenge. We have been working very closely with the NHS on this. It is investing a lot of money for hundreds of thousands of extra children. One of our first best-practice guides will be on this topic. We are training 5,000 early years special educational needs co-ordinators to help with early identification and introducing the new SENDCO NPQ, which will replace the existing qualification. Improving access to the right professionals, whether they are teachers, teaching assistants or the specialists we have talked a lot about today is a key part of our plans for reform. I thank everyone who has brought this matter forward for their detailed stories.