Examination of Witnesses (Questions 220-239)
MR DON
TOUHIG, BRIGADIER
ANTHONY BRISTER,
MS LIZ
CASSIDY, MR
DAVID WADSWORTH
AND MS
KATHRYN FORSYTH
2 MAY 2006
Q220 Chairman: We have mentioned
the evidence that we took in Colchester. One of the things that
came up there was the possibility of reserved places for service
children. Presumably that would involve either sufficient funding
for schools to be able to keep places open, or the rather brutal
decision to say to a child in the catchment area who is not a
service child, "No, you cannot come because we are holding
this place open." Is there, nevertheless, any possibility
of moving along the road of reserved places for service children,
where experience suggests it might ease some of the pressures?
Mr Touhig: I think, colleagues,
you will realise it is very difficult. It is a worthy aspiration,
but I can just imagine the difficulties we would have in representing
our own constituencies if we found that a school had reserved
five or six places on the possibility that some service children
might move in and that local children would then be denied an
opportunity. I do not have an answer. As I say, I think it is
a worthy aspiration but I think it is extremely difficult in consequence.
Indeed, in my own area, we discovered just a little while ago
that one of my schools had almost half a class of children who,
when they did the school audit, pre-audit, never turned up, and
they turned up on the first day of term. So there are huge problems,
I think, for schools and LEAs at the moment, and I am not sure
that this would be the right way to solve it. It would help in
terms of service families but I think there would be problems
with the rest of the community.
Q221 Robert Key: The question I want
to ask is whether it would be possible to talk to the Department
for Education and Skills about developing a policy of funding
following the child. The Minister just said that he knows there
can be problems if you have five or six children who might or
might not turn up to a primary school. If only the problem were
that small. Clarendon Junior School at Tidworth—which has
given the Committee evidence, and I spoke to the head this morning—currently
have 290 pupils on roll based on a budget set for the year for
242. That is a huge difference. They find it difficult to do any
better. I was therefore pleased to see in the annual report and
accounts of service children's education for 2004-05 that the
Pupil Level Annual School Census (PLASC) is now part of the system.
Congratulations. This is really moving forward, quite clearly,
but, even when you are flagging up service children and when the
assistant education officer for data management attends the PLASC
Conference and gives presentations and so on, still we have this
huge variation that is going on. Given that relations appear to
be developing positively with the Department for Education and
Skills, would it not be possible to develop a new system where
there is really no doubt, as far as the schools are concerned,
that if an extra 20, 30 or 40 children turn up there will be funding
for them—unlike the case facing Clarendon Junior School
in Tidworth, where some 50 children turned up who were not expected?
Mr Touhig: I think it is difficult.
I sat on an LEA for 20 years and I understand the point you are
making, but, as we recognise under our present system, every child
brings a pot of gold into a school and if that child does not
come to the school there is a gap. It is matter then to try to
resolve the difficulties which you have referred to with the LEA
(which has the head responsibility for the budget, although the
actual use of the budget is devolved to schools). I think it is
difficult. I recognise, though, that there is a problem there.
In the ongoing discussions we will have with DfES I have no doubt
this is going to figure, because nobody wants to see the education
system disrupted in the way you have just described and as I have
experienced in my own area, as a result of having people turn
up who you did not expect to turn up.
Q222 Robert Key: But the Treasury
is still going to fund that child, whether the tax payer is going
down the route of the Ministry of Defence budget or the Department
for Education and skills budget. It just seems to me that we have
an administrative problem here that needs sorting.
Mr Touhig: I think you are right.
In terms of the funding following the child around, I do understand
the point. My very limited ambition at the moment is to look at
children with special educational needs, as I touched on earlier,
as a first step. But I recognise that it is a problem. I am sure
we will have ongoing discussions with DfES, and no doubt, depending
on the report of this Committee, that might persuade us that we
should be doing something more.
Q223 Chairman: If we were to come
up with a system to solve that problem, you would find that helpful.
Mr Touhig: We do not have the
majority or all the best ideas. In the way our Parliament operates,
committees like this make an important contribution to thinking
about government policy on a whole range of things. Certainly
I do not have a monopoly of all the right answers, and if this
Committee can help us then that would be very useful to us.
Q224 Mr Jones: Is the system not
the problem, Minister? As I understand it, the money does follow
the child, but, if the child attends after September, what happens
is that you get the money but it will be a year later. The school
to which Mr Key has referred will get the money, but it will be
a year later. That is okay if you are in a normal school and you
might get two or three kids coming throughout the year, but there
is a specific problem where you have large numbers of service
children, possibly arriving not conveniently on 1 September but
later on. Would it not be a way to solve it with flexibility,
in a sense, if that money were drawn down not at the end of the
academic year, which it is, but to perhaps follow those children
more specifically? Because, with the numbers which Mr Key is referring
to, if you have large numbers like that, it will make a big difference
to that school budget in that year. I understand why the present
system works elsewhere, because in most schools the number of
kids who turn up in the year are only very few, but if you get
a large posting to an area it is going to affect the school budget.
Mr Touhig: Colleagues may be aware
of course that DfES is in consultation at the moment on funding
schools in England. We have been asked to contribute that. We
were looking at basic funding mechanisms, including changes to
pupil numbers, and this consultation thing is due to end shortly
and will impact upon the next CSR. So there is a lot of thinking
going on in this area at the moment. We will be playing our part,
and I have no doubt that if this Committee refer to it in its
report then that might well figure in the deliberations that will
come towards the next CSR about funding schools.
Q225 Linda Gilroy: I wonder if those
considerations include looking at the very substantial extra sums
of money coming through the personalisation agenda. It is something
like one billion pounds which is attached to the implementation
of the White Paper and the Education Bill. That will make it even
more important, if that money is to some extent able to follow
the pupils, that it does so in the case of service children. If
you are not already looking at that, then presumably you might
do so.
Mr Touhig: There is an area that
does interest me in particular; that is, whenever extra funding
is allocated for schools, of course in England it is decided that
funding will go directly. As the Chancellor announced in his last
Budget and so on, in the devolved administrations that can vary.
I am looking to see what might be done for our service schools.
It is a matter that does particularly interest me. We will have
to have discussions with other colleagues across government on
that.
Mr Wadsworth: I have a comment
on Mr Key's point about the money following the child. As I think
you know from the CVs, my background was in local authorities.
What we have been discussing for the last 15 minutes is really
an LEA funding policy issue rather than MoD, DfES or whatever,
but to talk about the money following the child makes an assumption,
I think, that there would be a standard unit cost, per capita
cost, whatever, per child across the country. Otherwise, you are
playing shops almost, are you not, between moving money from one
authority to another? The concept is fine but I think it has deeper
ramifications than we may have covered in the last ten minutes.
Brigadier Brister: May I follow
up on the point Mr Key made about PLASC? An important point within
that is that service children are not identified as a particular
category within that system.
Chairman: That is something we will certainly
come on to because we want to probe that in some detail, partly
as a result of what came up at Colchester. We have had quite a
bit of discussion about CEAS. Linda Gilroy has some more questions
about that.
Q226 Linda Gilroy: I wonder if you
could tell us a bit more about how the CEAS works across the piece.
You have described some parts of it but if you could perhaps give
us a more holistic version of that as a starting point.
Brigadier Brister: The CEAS role
is to assist service parents with every aspect of their children's
education in terms of giving advice and support. They support
families worldwide with educational issues. This can be done through
the telephone helpline that we have. We also produce and issue
information packs on various aspects of schooling, particularly,
for example, school admissions, appeals and special educational
needs, and, indeed, where necessary individual consultancies on
a range of issues. They also have a quality assurance role in
looking at the boarding schools which service people send their
children to and claim continuity of education allowance. They
provide advice and guidance there in terms of boarding. They produce
advice and assistance on all aspects and everyone has to have
a form signed by CEAS before they can claim continuity of education
allowance. On admissions, I think I have said enough, and you
would not want me to repeat what I have said on that. Special
educational needs is an absolutely key area for CEAS. They maintain
the MoD register of special educational needs; they produce advice
to families who have children on that register at the time of
posting and other issues revolving around the retention of quarters
if necessary; they put parents in touch with schools and local
authorities in the area to which they are moving; and they can
call and initiate case conferences for those children and then
represent the family at the case conference and on a tribunal
as well if necessary. CEAS is mentioned in the SEN code of practice
and we engage with DfES to try to get note taken of the special
circumstances surrounding service children. I think I have probably
said enough in terms of liaison with DfES and at regional level
as well. CEAS is also represented on the SCISS partnership—SCISS,
as you were briefed on down in Colchester. We have had some notable
successes in liaison in terms of special mention for service children
in the DfES Admissions Code of Practice. I have mentioned the
SEN Code of Practice. In terms of moving schools, we have produced
a moving school pack which we send to parents. Between April 2005
and March 2006 we sent out more than 4,000 copies of this pack.
I have brought a pack with me, if you would like a copy.
Q227 Linda Gilroy: Yes, please.
Brigadier Brister: SCE, with some
input from CEAS, have produced a deployment support pack. Then,
finally, in terms of research, CEAS have commissioned an NFER
study into the attainment of service children. At the moment,
NFER have looked at all schools with a mobility issue, if you
like, and that has been completed and they are now looking at
a set of schools with service mobility. But what we can't get
done properly until we have the entry on PLASC, as it was, is
to actually get proper empirical data on how service children
perform within the state system back home compared with others,
because they are not singularly identified. In summary, their
role is to help service parents as much as possible with all aspects
of children's education.
Q228 Linda Gilroy: Thank you very
much. Referring back to the Minister's statement that he wants
to do more for SEN children, the issue which seemed to come through
in the evidence at Colchester fairly quietly was that service
families are sometimes unwilling to seek help in case it is viewed
as a sign of weakness. Have you been looking at that? What could
be done about it?
Mr Touhig: Anecdotally, when I
have met with the Families' Federations. I do not think we have
had evidence to that effect, but we have raised it, and certainly
anecdotally there are comments about that. On the wider issue,
there is one serious area which we have to address, and that is
the huge problems caused to service families who have a child
with learning difficulties and the added burden that has on them.
It is really stressful and very hard indeed and we have to be
very proactive in seeking to resolve that.
Q229 Linda Gilroy: Do you want to
put any more flesh on the bones of how you might set about doing
that? I know you have said it is aspirational at this stage.
Mr Touhig: It is aspirational.
I recognise that every LEA has its policy on special educational
needs and so on, and every child when moved has to be re-statemented
and examined and so on, and that causes huge difficulties. Then
there is the issue of making sure, if there is a statement in
support, that the school is in a position to provide maybe one-to-one
support. It just seems to me that we have to look at a way—that
one area, as Mr Key was suggesting earlier—in which the
funding does follow the child. Even within the present system,
in my own experience—and perhaps colleagues have had the
same experience—I have had situations where a child has
got support in the primary school, has moved to the secondary
school and the support has stayed in the primary school: the money
has not followed the child through the system as it works. That
is the one thing I am looking at. We are obviously involved in
much discussion with our colleagues in DfES and I recognise that
there may be financial difficulties for us in trying to meet that
aspirational aim of mine. The numbers are not large, but the youngsters
are hugely disadvantaged if we cannot give that extra help and
support.
Chairman: As the subject of statementing
has come up now, let us concentrate on this. David Burrows, is
there anything you want to ask?
Q230 Mr Borrow: Minister, you mentioned
about children having to be re-statemented. Is it not possible
in discussion with the Department for Education to arrive at a
system where if a child has been statemented in Germany, for example,
and then returns to the UK, they do not have to go through that
process all over again, because as the Minister has mentioned
this is particularly disruptive for service families to keep having
to go through that process.
Mr Touhig: It is hugely difficult.
To us sitting round this table it seems common sense, but as a
young lad my mother used to say to me, "Son, in life you
will find that sense is not common." I think we have to recognise
that there is a problem here and we need to address it. But we
cannot do this on our own within the MoD, we have to work closely
with DfES and the local authority associations in order to try
to deliver this.
Brigadier Brister: We always,
and quite rightly, because they are the most needy, zero in on
those children who are statemented, but of course the issues are
also faced by children who are on school action and school action
plus. These are also children with special educational needs.
They too suffer from mobility and have the same issues of concern
that they feel they have to start again. We should not restrict
any examination of this just to those who are statemented, I would
suggest.
Q231 Chairman: It is not restricted
either to those who are coming from, say, Germany. It applies
to children moving within the UK.
Brigadier Brister: Yes.
Q232 Chairman: Neither is it restricted
to service families either. It is a wide issue but there is a
larger proportion of children with service backgrounds who are
eligible for statements. Is that right?
Mr Touhig: We do not have any
evidence of that.
Brigadier Brister: It is anecdotal.
You heard it in Colchester. I am not aware of any evidence that
would actually support that. I am sorry, I am repeating myself,
but we are back to PLASC.
Chairman: Yes, it brings us back to the
PLASC issue. Robert Key.
Q233 Robert Key: Chairman, I was
very concerned when I read the quinquennial review of the SCE
dated 1 May 2003—which is still of course very much live.
The recommendation at paragraph 8.8 is that Service Children's
Education should seek legal opinion on the avoidance of legislative
challenge under the UK Disability Discrimination Act on the grounds
(as explained under paragraphs 14, 17 and 18) that SCE is unable
to provide for the inclusion of all service children who may be
disabled in some way here, and that there are limitations of funding
leading to possible legal challenges under the Disability Discrimination
Act. It may be unfair to ask you to answer this off the cuff,
but it is very relevant. I would be grateful if you would update
the Committee with what happened following that recommendation
that you should seek to avoid legislative challenge, because I
think it is something that a lot of people would be very interested
in hearing about.
Mr Wadsworth: Mr Chairman and
Mr Key, there probably is within that recommendation a slight
over-reaction, but nonetheless it was true at the time that we
were not able to admit every youngster with particular types of
special educational need. I have to say that there has been a
sea-change in the last ten years in SCE—so we are talking
about overseas commands here—inasmuch as there was a time
when we by no means could have been described as inclusive. I
think that has changed virtually totally now. Post the data you
are talking about there, we have put a massive investment into
special educational needs, into the training of teachers, and
into the support functions. We have a support team now going around
schools; we have the psychologists and the social workers as well.
That picture has totally changed. It remains the case, though,
that in some of the more isolated detachments there may be youngsters
whose special needs would be catered for but maybe in the UK in
a special school or in a special unit, where we still cannot do
that. Often it is not so much the unwillingness or inability of
the education service but sometimes it is the other support that
the family would need with that youngster because of his particular
problems, medical, psychological, or whatever it is.
Q234 Chairman: I have one final question
on statementing and then we will come back to Linda Gilroy to
pursue further issues about CEAS. My question on statementing
relates to something that you said minister; namely your aspiration
to move towards a passport of statementing for children, which
sounds, to me at any rate, a very, very worth aspiration. Do you
have any concrete plans to put such a thing in place or even to
discuss that with the Department for Education and Skills? If
so, what is the timetable?
Mr Touhig: The intention of discussing
it with the Department of Education is one of the things that
came up just after I was appointed over a year ago. I have asked
officials to scope some work to see how this might be achieved.
This will lead to discussions with DfES. I do not have a timeframe
at the present time. We are due to have the Families' Federation
meeting quite shortly. I am sure it is going to be raised again.
I am conscious that I would like to push ahead with this as quickly
as possible. If it is not possible, then let us see what else
we can do, but this seems to me to be the sensible approach. If
it helps the Committee, we do encourage service families now to
register any child with us if they have any special needs, and,
once registered, of course we take into account that fact and
any posting location of service and so on and so forth and try
to make sure the proper support is there. But we recognise that
there is a gap. Certainly from the evidence you have thus far
taken and in my time as minister of the Department, from the families'
point of view there is a very keen worry about children with special
educational needs.
Q235 Linda Gilroy: What assistance
in the form of travel allowance information is given to service
families travelling from overseas to visit UK schools before they
are posted to the UK? Or should I be asking: Would you consider
making such allowances more available or available?
Brigadier Brister: As far as I
am aware, there are no financial allowances to come to the UK
in advance to see schools. At the moment, as far as I am aware,
that is not under consideration either. So that answers your question.
I look behind me—and I am correct.
Q236 Linda Gilroy: Does the minister
have any observations on that?
Mr Touhig: No, not at this stage.
Again, on face value it seems a good idea. There are all sorts
of practical problems why it might not be achievable, but I do
not doubt, Mr Chairman, if it figures in your report, that we
will respond and it might trigger us looking at it.
Chairman: It sounds as though it might
well.
Q237 Linda Gilroy: In general terms,
is the service adequately funded?
Mr Touhig: I believe so.
Brigadier Brister: There are financial
allowances to help parents with children who have special educational
needs to visit schools prior to a posting, I should have said,
but for the remainder there is not.
Q238 Linda Gilroy: Is that proactively
communicated to the parents who it might concern?
Brigadier Brister: With SEN, I
am sure it is. Once we get a child registered on the MoD SEN register,
then every effort is made to help them in every way.
Mr Touhig: We do have a review
of remuneration taking place at the moment, Chairman, the Committee
may be aware of it, and this could well figure in that review.
Q239 Linda Gilroy: The Minister would
repeat that CEAS is adequately funded?
Mr Touhig: Yes, I believe so.
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