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Memorandum submitted by Robert Buckland, Swindon SEN Network
My name is Robert Buckland and I am co-ordinator of the Swindon Special Educational Needs Network, which was set up last year in response to concerns about SEN provision locally and nationally. The group meets quarterly, and has a website at www.swindon-senn.net. It consists of parents, teachers, other professionals and volunteers who meet quarterly to share information and to discuss issues of topical importance.
At our meeting of 12th June 2007, our submission to the Committee was discussed. The document enclosed is a product of that discussion and the views of contributors, rather than the efforts of one person. We commend its contents to the Committee and tender it as written evidence.
EXECUTIVE SUMMARY
Main Points of Submission:
· The current situation involving LEAs as funders and assessors of SEN is not acceptable and needs to change; · The cost of the Local Authority Psychology Service could be delegated to schools; · Two or three secondary schools could be permitted to create a "cluster" to employ their own educational psychologist; · Groups of educational psychologists can set up their own independent companies and are accountable through them to their own professional bodies; · There is little or no accountability now from LEAs to schools, teachers or parents; · Local Community Educational Councils could be set up as bodies that would monitor standards and investigate concerns or complaints.
INTRODUCTION TO SUBMITTER
Robert Buckland is a barrister specialising in criminal law, practising mainly in Wales and the South West. His interest in this topic was heightened by his own experiences as a parent of a child with a Statement of Special Needs. With the help of other local residents, he set up the Swindon SEN Network last year. Robert is the Conservative Parliamentary Candidate for South Swindon, but this submission is tendered in his capacity as Swindon SEN Network Co-ordinator. This submission is the product of the input of SEN Network members, and in particular the input of experienced SENCOs and teachers. It is therefore made on behalf of all members of the Network.
Factual Information: Network members make the following observations based upon their own direct experiences as parents and teachers in the Swindon area of the current practice of educational psychologists:
1. Educational psychologists' reports often contained a lack of real depth and proper detail.
2. Even when the child's difficulties and needs have been identified clearly (not always the case), there is an apparent unwillingness to recommend specific provision to meet the needs of the child, for example, in terms of specialist teaching; the amount of TA support across the curriculum; group size; type of school etc.
3. A number of parents commented that psychologists had told them in face to face conversation, or over the phone, what special educational provision they felt the child required, but had asked the parents not to tell anyone else (e.g. LEA officers) what they had recommended!
4. Parents find that, with no clear recommendations in the reports, they need to find and pay for an independent assessment if they wish to exercise their right of appeal to SENDIST.
5. A specialist teacher, with long term experience of working in an advisory capacity within an LEA and currently employed as a SENCo in a large secondary school, observed the ways in which educational psychologists (and also some LEA advisory teachers) have changed their professional practices over the past ten years. It used to be accepted, indeed required, practice for educational psychologists to specify provision, including, where appropriate, writing, "Consideration should be given to a specialised placement". The educational environment thought suitable for the child used to be described in recognisable terms, for example, a special unit within a mainstream school; a small, specialised educational setting with small teaching groups and a high adult/pupil ratio; a "24-hour curriculum". The teacher commented that this is no longer the case. In her experience, provision is now described only in very vague terms. For a child with a learning difficulty, this might simply be as a list of published programmes and/or methodologies, to be carried out by the school within existing resources.
6. Ideological factors, as well as funding constraints, seem to be influencing practice. Psychologists appear to be under great pressure not to write, or mention, anything that could imply a placement other than mainstream, even when there is much evidence that mainstream has not worked for the child and parents are wanting and seeking an alternative. The possibility of a specialist placement is very rarely even mentioned - LEA officers give as their reason the government's "inclusion policy". Parents who feel their child needs a special school placement, therefore, have to do all the research into possible schools for themselves.
7. In our experience, educational psychologists no longer say, or write, that it would be appropriate to request a statutory assessment of a pupil. One SENCo has been told by her school's educational psychologist that it is not his role to recommend that a child should have a statutory assessment. Since the Authority must surely incur considerable expense in opposing statutory assessment and 'forcing' parents to appeal to SENDIST, one wonders whether this has more to do with an LA target to reduce the number of statutory assessments than with finance.
RECOMMENDATIONS FOR ACTION We seek to assist with answers to two of the questions put by the Committee in Press Notice No. 21. 8. Our general view is that the current situation involving LEAs as funders and assessors of SEN is not acceptable and needs to change. We praise the excellent work of educational psychologists who continue to make a real difference in the lives of many children. We remain very concerned, however, about the lack of real independence from the LEA, which creates obvious conflicts of interest and adds to a perception that there is a lack of objectivity upon the part of educational psychologists.
How might assessment of SEN be undertaken other than by the relevant local authority? Suggested ways forward: (i) Groups of educational psychologists set up their own independent companies and are accountable, through them, to their own professional body: "The Chartered Institute of Psychologists".
(ii) The cost of the Local Authority Psychology Service could be delegated to schools, which could then refer children to an independent psychologist of their choosing. We accept that there may be a limitation to this proposal in that if divided by formula, small schools would not have sufficient money to make this practicable.
(iii) Could two or three secondary schools join together to employ their own educational psychologist? We accept that there is a limitation to this proposal in that the psychologist might then be criticised for 'doing what the school wanted' but believe that if power to schools is to mean anything, the power to create such a cluster would be valuable.
How might local accountability for assessment be maintained if the local authority does not directly undertake the assessment?
(iv) Psychologists would be accountable to their own professional bodies, such as the The Chartered Institute of Psychologists, the Association of Educational Psychologists or the British Psychological Society which would set rigorous standards for high quality assessment and reporting. The assumption that a new body or quango has to be set up ignores the existence of these regulating bodies.
(v) It should be noted that from the point of view of parents and teachers there is little or no accountability now with regard to LEAs. Schools have to accept the educational psychologist allocated to them and cannot request someone else if 'their' psychologist has no expertise in a particular area (e.g. autism or dyslexia) or if the school is unhappy with the quality of his/her work. We do not think that this right or desirable.
(vi) Local Community Educational Councils could be set up as bodies that would monitor standards and investigate concerns or complaints. We regard the abolition of corresponding Community Health Councils in England as a retrograde step, and believe that CECs, with representatives from the community, many of whom will have experience in educational matters, would be an important means of improving local accountability.
June 2007
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