My Lords, I welcome the Children and Families Bill and the potential that it presents to provide a real choice of educational opportunities for disabled children, young people and their parents. The Government stated in their Green Paper, Support and Aspiration: A New Approach to Special Educational Needs and Disability, that they wanted a greater choice of education provision than what is currently available. However, the reality is that choice of education provision remains something of a myth. In 2013, disabled students are still the only group that can be prevented from choosing to be educated in mainstream education. Disabled children and young people can be placed on the roll of a special school against their wishes and against the wishes of their parents, even when those parents have clearly expressed a preference for mainstream education.
The lack of choice for disabled children with SEN and their families is as real now as it was eight years ago when the Disability Rights Commission investigation took place in 2005. The charity, Working Families, which represents the parents of disabled children who were involved in the investigation, said:
“Parents of disabled children may be faced with a very limited choice of schooling locally. They may encounter difficulties in ensuring their disabled child is educated alongside their siblings if there is no appropriate provision”.
When parents opt for a special school place for their disabled child, there is no evidence that this indicates a preference for special schooling. In 2009, the Centre for Studies on Inclusive Education submitted written evidence in the form of a memorandum to the Joint Committee on Human Rights when it was looking at children’s rights. It stated that:
“The idea that parents do have a choice, under the present system, is in any case a myth. Children in segregated schools are often there because they have been rejected by their local mainstream
school (if indeed they ever got as far as the door). Many parents who ‘choose’ a special school placement do so because they believe, or have been told by professionals, that mainstream provision is not possible for their child. In other words, that mainstream provision is currently structured in a way that it cannot respond to the diversity of learners. This means that many parents do not have the ‘choice’ of mainstream at all, rendering a special school placement an unwelcome inevitability. To say that they have chosen this is misleading and, potentially, insulting”.
Parents placing children in special schools do not see this as equality of choice; on the contrary, it is rather the outcome of discrimination that surely goes against both the spirit and the wording of the Equality Act public sector equality duty. This duty makes it very clear that statutory bodies, including the Government, local authorities, schools and colleges, are under a proactive duty to promote equality between disabled and non-disabled pupils in terms of both accessing and participating in mainstream education. An Alliance for Inclusive Education member who is a parent said:
“Unfortunately and against all my beliefs we have had to opt for a special school … If you segregate with disability then you are saying that these children should not have the same opportunity as so called normal children which in my view is discrimination”.
Local authorities are key in making choice in education, since they have the power to place children and young people with SEN on the roll of special schools. The reduction of funding available to local authorities and the increasing number of special schools being funded by the Department for Education through the academies and free schools programme will lead to greater numbers of disabled children and young people with SEN being placed in special schools. A disabled child on the roll of a mainstream school is likely to require the local authority to pay for additional SEN support directly from the local authority’s education budget. However, the cost to the local authority of a DfE-funded special academy school placement is nil, as spending comes directly from the department. The choice will therefore be driven by the need to balance the books, rather than by duties under the Equality Act. If the Government want real choice, there is a need to remove the local authority’s power to name a special school against the expressed wish of a family. This change needs to be reflected during the new education, health and care assessment and planning process, which will replace existing statementing.
The Children and Families Bill covers only the placing of children and young people with SEN in a mainstream school or college building. It does not cover what children and young people with SEN will learn while attending. Since the Academies Act, increasing numbers of children and young people have lost their entitlement to a national curriculum as academies are no longer required to offer it. The result is that children are denied access to a broad and balanced curriculum and are increasingly being placed on special courses. Effectively, instead of increasing choice, there is already a restriction of choice cascading down from post-16.
The Learning and Skills Council report in 2008 found that disabled people with learning disabilities were four times more likely to be enrolled on a segregated course rather than a mainstream accredited course, whether at college or sixth form. Since the report was published, little has changed. The Down’s Syndrome Association has expressed concerns that children with
Down’s syndrome have been placed into discrete courses for students with learning disabilities and difficulties, without the opportunity even to consider mainstream accredited courses. If the Government want to promote greater educational choice, they must include a choice of courses.
As a vehicle for providing more choice, the personal budgets that will be made available for young people with SEN and their parents is welcomed. For the first time, children and young people with SEN will be able to use a direct payment instead of depending on the SEN provision to be arranged by the school, college or local authority. This will have an impact particularly on further education, as it should mean that young people will be able to purchase the support that they need while attending a course of their choice. However, for students in schools or post-16 there is still a snag, because they will need consent from the institution before they can make use of the personal budget, as required under the Special Educational Needs (Direct Payments) (Pilot Scheme) Order 2011. The unfortunate reality is that in today’s financial climate it is very unlikely that colleges and schools will provide consent for a personal budget request made by young people or their parents, as this will mean a reduction in their own budget. If the Government want to promote choice, then the parents and young person requesting a personal budget should be given one, as is the case currently with social care personal budgets. Only when young people have a personal budget will their choice increase—a real choice over which mainstream courses they want to attend.
For the Government to promote a genuine choice of educational opportunities, they need to remove and not increase the barriers that prevent children and young people from participating in mainstream education. If the Minister believes in choice of education provision, he should first consider the local authority’s power to frustrate children, young people and parents from exercising their choice of mainstream education provision. Secondly, the Minister should reconsider the options for schools and colleges to refuse families and young people with SEN the option of seeking a personal budget in lieu of support provided by the institution.
The reason why I am so passionate about this is because more than 30 years ago my parents fought for the same things that many parents fight for today. It is really challenging for young people who are trying to balance so many different options and for parents trying to make the right choices. It is vital that we allow parents to have real choice.
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