Examination of Witnesses (Questions 200-219)
MRS EIRWEN
GRENFELL-ESSAM,
MS PAULA
JEWES, MR
HUGH PAYTON
AND MR
CHRIS GOODEY
11 JANUARY 2006
Q200 Stephen Williams: On the question
of audit, there is some evidence. In the Ofsted report of 2004.
They found some instances of schools doing what was just described.
Presumably, if a recommendation of this Committee's final report
was that this funding should be ring-fenced, that is something
across the piece that you would all think was a sound recommendation.
Mrs Grenfell-Essam: Yes.
Mr Payton: Indeed.
Q201 Stephen Williams: You are all
nodding.
Mr Payton: Yes.
Mrs Grenfell-Essam: A SENCO can
be just a class teacher who has half an hour a week to do that
role.
Ms Jewes: If the SENCO was to
have the sort of expertise in the school and could disseminate
good practice, that would be an incredible improvement.
Q202 Stephen Williams: So it is not
just ring-fencing the money.
Ms Jewes: No.
Q203 Stephen Williams: Obviously
everybody wants more money, but it is making sure that the SENCO
who is responsible for this early intervention work has sufficient
resources in time.
Ms Jewes: Yes, somebody who has
the job to do that.
Mrs Grenfell-Essam: One of the
recommendations is that the SENCO is senior management. That can
only happen in some schools. In some schools they are not, and
there is no funding specifically saying that SENCO must be senior
management, must have management points or . . . .
Q204 Stephen Williams: I think that
point was made by earlier witnesses as well at this inquiry, that
the SENCO is often a junior member of staff.
Mrs Grenfell-Essam: Yes.
Ms Jewes: Or part-time.
Mrs Grenfell-Essam: Yes, somebody
who comes in two days a week.
Ms Jewes: We have some excellent
head teachers and excellent heads of units in our schools who
produce fantastic results, and the common factor amongst these
individuals who produce excellent results is that it is their
job to look after and educate special needs children. They do
not have another job: that is their job. That is the common thread.
Q205 Stephen Williams: Could we move
on to admission. The Committee is just coming to the end of looking
at the White Paper and diversity in schools is clearly an issue
there: the Government has an aspiration for more diversity. Do
you think this increase in the types of school is going to increase
the choices available to parents with special educational needs?
Ms Jewes: Could I highlight and
put a big flag on parents again. It is fine to say parents have
choice but special educational needs parents are not as good advocates
for their children. Many do not have parents, many are looked
after. Many parents are in denial, many parents would not really
even support the best service for their own children because of
the special educational need that their children has.
Q206 Chairman: Are we not shifting
around here? Some of you, not all of you, are saying that we tend
to get more evidence of special educational needs in a more affluent
borough like Richmond because parents are more articulate. There
I thought you were describing pretty articulate parents, who know
what they want, who are determined go get a statement for their
child. All these parents are not unable to—
Ms Jewes: No, but it is amazing
how often you see a large number of parents who are willing to
pull their children into an independent school, rather than have
them stigmatised with a statement, or there are parents who have
them diagnosed with milder things, rather than have an autistic
stamp on their head. I have seen a lot of children fail as a result
of parents refusing to acknowledge their children's real problems
or what really will affect them. There is the other end of the
spectrum that we know about as well, of there being a lot of socially
disadvantaged families with special needs, so those children do
not have a voice either, generally. I just want the Committee
to be very cautious of going down this road of: If the parent
can decide, everything gets resolved.
Mrs Grenfell-Essam: We have parents
in Essex who are making choices for secondary school and they
do not know how to fill the form in, let alone make the choice.
If they have to have a choice between lots of schools in the area
and they themselves have problems filling the form in, let alone
making the choice, are they really having a choice or will they
be the ones who get the leftovers?
Q207 Stephen Williams: Aside from
the White Paper, the Government had a programme anyway with expanding
academies, particularly in cities. In my city we have had evidence
that academies may not have a good reputation on admitting children
who are SEN. Is that an experience that you have witnessed?
Mr Payton: Can I make a different
point, representing a rural county? Many towns only have one school
and that one choice must be a very, very good school which caters
for the majority of things, but where it is not able to cater
for then you require additional facilities elsewhere. Having a
choice in a city is one thing but having a choice in a town with
one school is no choice, and therefore it has to be good.
Q208 Stephen Williams: Indeed, if
my colleague, Tim Farron, who represents a large rural constituency
in England, were here he would be making that point rather better
than I.
Mr Goodey: I am sure that is the
case but that is a de facto lack of choice. Could I just
reiterate that parents who want mainstream lack choice de jure?
Q209 Stephen Williams: No one actually
picked up on academies. Is there any national evidence on academies?
Mrs Grenfell-Essam: We have not
heard anything about them, really. I do not think they have been
in situ long enough for us to—
Chairman: That is what we like: when
people honestly say, "We do not know".
Q210 Jeff Ennis: On the parent's
rights issue, do you believe that local authorities uphold a parent's
right to seek a special school place or does it vary?
Ms Jewes: No, the local authorities—I
think all of them—pursue a blanket inclusion policy.
Q211 Jeff Ennis: We have already
said that we thought it was a good idea that we should ring-fence
special educational needs funding. The Chairman touched on the
point earlier in the session that many of our neighbouring countries—Wales,
Scotland and Ireland—are moving away from the formal statementing
process, and we seem to be digging our heels in, as it were, in
wanting to retain it. Do you think we now ought to be moving on
and abandoning the statementing process, given all the caveats
you have put down in your earlier evidence?
Ms Jewes: I believe we should
change the statementing process to be brought into schools so
that it is quicker and less of a going to an outside authority
with a big, expensive procedure. I also believe that some of the
assessments could be done by expert SENCOs combined with visiting
speech therapists, occupational therapists and other experts,
without having always to resort to educational psychologists.
Also if GPs were more expert in special needs they would be able
to help. A very quick, efficient bread-and-butter process of assessing
with a ring-fenced provision following is a form of statement
but is not as formal as we have now, and, really, every child
should have that right when they have a special need in school.
That would be, to me, the way forward and our group agree; it
is not that we want the current statementing, where you have to
fight and you have to go to tribunal, to be extended, we think
it should be a bread-and-butter procedure, day-to-day within a
school, with expert resources.
Q212 Jeff Ennis: So, effectively,
we need to slim-line and localise the system?
Ms Jewes: Yes, but have the legal
right of the child to have their needs met still protected.
Mrs Grenfell-Essam: The problem
with localising is would my authority give one child a statement
and the authority down the road would not, so when that child
moves house they start all over again and may not get a provision.
We were meant to have, under the 1981 Education Act, an across-the-board
system that actually is not—every authority does its own
thing.
Q213 Jeff Ennis: So you are happier
with the current statementing process?
Mrs Grenfell-Essam: I would like
to slim it down a lot from what it is now.
Q214 Chairman: You would like to
retain it?
Mrs Grenfell-Essam: I would like
to retain something similar to it, where there is a legal provision
that has to be met.
Mr Payton: The statement process
is very heavy-handed. Something is needed—whether you call
it a statement or something else—to protect the interests
of most children in need. The process is very bureaucratic and
heavy-handed, and that is the fundamental problem. A lighter weight
system, whether you call it a statement or whatever, is necessary.
Ms Jewes: The fundamental thing
is that the child is properly assessed at the beginning and then
quickly the resources they need are allocated and protected. It
is very simple and, actually, the statementing process does that,
it is just made long-winded because of the conflict built into
it. That is the fundamental thing: they need their needs assessed
straightaway, properly, and then met, properly, and ring-fenced.
Q215 Jeff Ennis: The current tribunal
system comes in for a lot of criticism, rightly so, from parents,
being too legalistic and cumbersome, and you have got the issue
of not qualifying for Legal Aid, and all that sort of thing. Would
it not be better and would it not cause less friction between
parents and LAs if we had more of an arbitration-type service
or conciliation-type service to agree the problems rather than
a formal tribunal system?
Mr Payton: That exists today.
I imagine there would be mixed receptions to the effectiveness
of those conciliation services. My experience has been that you
go through another layer to continue disagreement—and there
seems little purpose.
Ms Jewes: Beside the fact that
we are forced through the extra layers because that is the way
the authorities delay committing the budgets to the statement.
Q216 Chairman: How do you get through
this problem that any constituency MP has picked up on, that is
that you get parents that are passionate in their view of what
is right for their child but you get the heads and the teachers
who might have a different view on that. Who makes that decision?
Must it always be the parents that are right? Who is the best
arbitrator here?
Ms Jewes: If the professionals
were acting properly then there would not be as much disagreement.
The parents only have their strong opinions because they have
been advised by other professionals Parents of, for example, an
autistic child, do not overnight become an expert in provision
for autistic children; it takes years and years to understand
your own autistic child's needs. So parents rely on information
they read, information from the doctors that they see that they
find to be most professional, and they only become passionate
because they have a reason to be passionate about what they believe
is needed. What they encounter is a barrier to their child's needs
being met from day one under the current system, the way the local
authorities implement the statementing law. It is not just a question
of the parents unreasonably wanting one thing and the others saying
this is what is right.
Q217 Jeff Ennis: My authority still
has special schools, in both Barnsley and Doncaster, both doing
a great job. In many respects, I think the linkages that currently
exist between mainstream schools and special schools need to be
developed a lot more, for obvious reasons. How high a priority
do you think it is, that where we do retain special schools that
are doing a good job, it is not just about educating the children
within their own particular four walls, it is about getting out
into the wider school community and building bridges?
Mr Payton: I can answer your question
from experience. Some years ago I sought in my rural county to
achieve a close relationship between independent specialist schools
and the mainstream schools in their areas. The independent schools
were all for that but none of the mainstream schools or the education
authority were. It is an interesting thing. It was a negative
experience but I tried very hard.
Mrs Grenfell-Essam: We have tried
to liaise with our local special school, and it is time constraints.
Our children in mainstream have to meet the National Curriculum
guidelines for two hours of this, three hours of this and four
hours of this. When is the time to do something else? We have
tried having lessons with their children coming to our school
and our children going to their school and having more links with
the staff, but it is time constraints as well as resourcing.
Q218 Mr Marsden: I have a quick question,
aimed at Eirwen and your previous comments about what happens
to their statement when children move. There seems to be a general
consensus that people would like to see the statementing process
changed in some shape or form but can I just ask would you be
in favour of a statementing process, however it is changed or
revised, which actually travelled with the child if that child
moves, admitting that there may be different mechanisms between
local authorities for judging on that statement? Could that not
be policed in some way through a sort of arbitration process?
Mrs Grenfell-Essam: It would be
very good. It does not at the moment. Every statement is rewritten.
When a child moves county or moves LA the statement is rewritten;
there is reassessment and thousands of pounds go into writing
a statement which has already been written. So why can it not
just go with the child?
Q219 Mr Marsden: So you would agree
with my suggestion?
Mrs Grenfell-Essam: Absolutely.
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