I am covering for my colleague here, so I am doing a double act.
Amendment 75 proposes a new clause, which very much picks up on the point that the noble Lord, Lord Ramsbotham, made in the debate about the importance of early identification. We believe that identifying and supporting children with SEN as early as possible is the most important factor in improving their outcomes, so our new clause would put early years area SENCOs on a statutory basis, like school SENCOs. It would require local authorities to employ enough of them to support all the identified needs locally. Clause 22 requires local authorities to seek to identify children and young people in their area who may have SEN. Our amendment would insert “as early as possible”, which again echoes the points we made in the earlier debate.
The professionals who work with children have a crucial role to play as the first educators with whom those children come into contact. A number of issues such as speech and communication problems, developmental delay, behavioural issues and literacy problems can be better addressed by having a good quality early years provider, meaning that children start school in a much better position than they otherwise would have. Fewer resources would then be required in later years, so the case is well made and cost effective.
However, the early years workforce is typically the least qualified in the education sector, while cuts to local authority budgets have meant that councils have cut their training budgets for early years staff by 40% since the election, resulting in many cutting back on the early years area SENCOs that they previously employed to provide advice and training in early years settings. Yet the support that they provide is now needed more than ever. A recent Communication Trust project, Talk of the Town, evidenced that, across a federation of schools, children and young people’s speech and language needs were underidentified by an average of 40%. The Communication Trust says that it,
“remains concerned over how the Bill will ensure that the mechanisms for identification will work in practice across all educational phases and also on local authorities’ ability to identify needs as early as possible, and to respond to these needs”.
The NDCS, the RNIB and Sense are also concerned that overall proposals do not place sufficient emphasis on the importance of early years support for children with sensory impairments and their families.
Labour tabled these amendments in the Commons. At the time, the Minister said that he would reflect on whether and, if so, how some of the good practice of
area SENCOs could be reflected in the code of practice. As I have just hinted, I have only just acquired this brief this afternoon. I have looked at the code of practice and I am struggling to see where that might be. There is certainly reference to maintained nurseries having a role, but nothing that spells out the role that area SENCOs can have with the more diverse group of early years providers. I look forward very much to hearing what the Minister has to say about that, but I hope that we can agree that more can be done within the Bill and the code to emphasise the importance of these early years area SENCOs. I beg to move.