My Lords, the Bill has a number of very important measures, many of which are positive. However, like other noble Lords, I have a number of concerns, particularly around the issues of fostering and adoption, such as the removal of explicit duties to consider the ethnic origins of a child when placing for an adoption and the proposed 26-week time limit for care and supervision proceedings especially for complex cases—issues that I would like to return to in Committee .
However, in the time available today I want to focus my contribution on Part 3 of the Bill and seek some assurances from the Minister, whom I welcome to the Dispatch Box with his first major Bill. My concerns are around the impact of SEN provision for young people with complex needs aged between 19 and 25, particularly those supported in independent schools and the non-maintained special school sector. I have sought advice and information from the National Association of Independent Schools and Non-Maintained Special Schools, which, as noble Lords may be aware, is a membership organisation that provides information, support and training to its members in order to benefit and advance the education of children and young people with special educational needs. The association has more than 215 members spread over the whole of England and Wales, and through their non-maintained and independent special schools they cater for around 13,000 of the most vulnerable children in the country with a very wide range of complex needs.
Like other noble Lords, I welcome the proposals in the Bill that extend parent choice and give help to some of the most vulnerable children and young people, many of whom have very complex needs. I particularly support the Bill’s proposal to replace SEN statements with plans from birth to 25. I hope that, alongside the Care Bill, this will result in a stronger focus on preparing young people for adulthood.
In recent years I have noted an increasing number of independent special schools developing services for young people with complex needs. This support is sometimes delivered through independent specialist college provision, but many non-maintained and independent special schools deliver adult social care plus a variety of health, social enterprise and employment services. Often, this provision has no formally recognised education component and is funded through adult social services or continuing care support.
While the Bill is positive with regard to this proposal, I, like my noble friend Lord Touhig, would like clarification from the Minister that those people aged 19 to 25 with complex needs would be eligible for the continuation of their plans. Young people with complex needs such as profound and multiple learning difficulties, aged between 19 and 25, who are supported in the non-maintained and independent special schools sector, need to keep learning past the age of 19, especially as they learn much more slowly than their mainstream
peers. Many of these young adults will require a period of time after their formal schooling in a transition service, as they may not be able to navigate these transition years as other young adults can.
The years between 19 and 25 are socially accepted as a time of experimentation and of finding limits and boundaries. We do not expect non-disabled young adults at the age of 19 to settle down into an adult life or go into an adult home environment where they stay for the rest of their lives and, as the noble Earl, Lord Listowel, has just said, it is difficult for children in foster placements to leave at the age of 18. Young adults with complex needs therefore particularly need support to make sense of the transition years and to develop a sense of themselves as adults and what it means to be an adult.
For example, some of these young adults may have limited life experiences and might need to continue to experience such things as going to the supermarket, how to go shopping, choosing which film to watch at the cinema and how to go to local restaurants. The period of time that they spend in such a service will mark the transition from childhood to adulthood and be a type of, I suppose, social apprenticeship—a period of their life that helps them to develop as an adult and prepare for a more independent life.
Creating the right environment to achieve an understanding of adult life is an important part of supporting development, and young people with complex needs would clearly benefit from the continued protection of the plan. I will give noble Lords an example from my own part of the country, West Yorkshire. Young people with complex needs are fortunate to have the services of the Hollybank Trust in an area called Mirfield. In the past five years, all its school students have made the transition into adult services with the support of the trust. This has enabled them to focus on crucial areas of development such as communication and independent living skills.
However, young people attending schools in other areas have not always been so fortunate. The Chailey Heritage Foundation in East Sussex has just launched an innovative new life skills service for young people aged 19 and over. Young people can use their personal social care budgets to pick and choose the elements of service that they wish to access, such as life skills development and well-being and leisure opportunities. The reasons for this service being developed are interesting. It has been developed in response to the difficulties faced by young people with complex physical and learning difficulties on leaving school. The reports that I have looked at from adult social services in the area reveal cases where school leavers moving to adult care homes had had their communication aids removed from them and stored in the office, and had had their motorised wheelchairs turned off as they were causing wear and tear to furniture and walls. These were young people at great risk of losing the skills developed across their schooling and which would have enabled them to lead more independent and happier adult lives.
I was encouraged by the Government’s amendment to the Bill in Committee in the other place that will result in a duty being placed on clinical commissioning
groups to secure the provision of health services as agreed under the EHC plans. However, I would be grateful if the Minister could clarify that those young adults with complex needs will continue to receive the support that they require in order to help them make the transition to adulthood. Clause 45 outlines the conditions for when a local authority may cease to maintain an EHC plan for a child or young person. I draw the Minister’s attention to subsection (3), which says:
“When determining whether a child or young person no longer requires the special educational provision specified in his or her EHC plan, a local authority must have regard to whether the educational outcomes specified in the plan have been achieved”.
I would like to see subsection (3) amended so that plans will not be cut off when “educational outcomes are achieved”. The fact that young people with complex needs often have different educational outcomes needs to be recognised in the legislation.
Similarly, Clause 45(4) says:
“In determining whether it is no longer necessary for an EHC plan to be maintained for a young person aged over 18, a local authority must have regard to his or her age”.
I am concerned that subsection (4) and a number of other clauses—Clauses 36 to 41—will result in some young people with complex needs losing a plan once they turn 18. I suggest that Clause 45 should be amended so that instead of starting with,
“A local authority may cease to maintain an EHC plan for a child or young person only if”—
paragraphs (a) and (b) are met, it should read, “A local authority must maintain an EHC plan for a child or young person until their 25th birthday”, unless paragraphs (a) or (b) apply. This strengthening of Clause 45 will provide some confidence that young adults with complex needs will continue to get the support that they need.
In conclusion, children with complex needs have an entitlement to education, and this should not stop at this crucial stage in their lives. This entitlement must be extended to them when they become young adults. Moreover, considerable time, effort and investment has been put into their education as children and, in order to ensure that the social and financial investment that has been made during these school years is protected, the Government must guarantee that young people with complex needs will have continued support past the age of 19. I hope that the Minister will look again at these important issues.
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