My Lords, the Government argue that the local offer will improve transparency. However, in one area there is virtually no information available to parents: that is, information on the quality of specialist SEN support services. As drafted, the Bill misses an opportunity to improve outcomes for children with SEN by requiring Ofsted to inspect specialist SEN support services. We believe that this move would improve the overall accountability of the Bill.
This is another area in which the SEN Green Paper recognised the vital role that specialist SEN services have to play. Parents are therefore often surprised that these same SEN educational services are subject to no real formal scrutiny in the same way that schools are. The absence of any reliable data on the number of children with sensory impairments and the outcomes they achieve also means that parents have no way of comparing local offers and SEN provision. Let me illustrate this with an anecdote. A head of a service for deaf children said to the National Deaf Children’s Society:
“I wholeheartedly agree that specialist services should be inspected by Ofsted. All teaching should be inspected to ensure high quality, rigour and recognition of the specialist nature of the work that specialist teachers do as well as raising the profile of deaf education and provision. This would also contribute to narrowing the gap between deaf children and mainstream children attainment”.
As we know, Ofsted has already identified that local authorities are very weak on evaluation of SEN provision. The 2012 Ofsted report on effective practice in services for deaf children said:
“There was limited strategic overview and no systematic approach across all services to evaluate the quality of services and their impact on improving the lives of deaf children”.
In another place, the Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Children and Families stated that he was exploring with Ofsted how concerns about SEN provision could be covered under Ofsted’s existing programme for inspecting local authority school improvement functions. This statement was made in spring this year and no update has been provided since. I believe that there needs to be greater certainty on the local offer and accountability before the Bill progresses further.
The amendment would substantially improve the Bill by requiring Ofsted to inspect specialist SEN support services. On day seven of Grand Committee, the Minister—my noble friend Lady Northover—stated that the department has asked Ofsted,
“to study and report on how best to identify best practice in preparing for SEN reforms … and to consider particularly whether there is a need for an inspection framework to drive improvements”.—[Official Report, 30/10/13; col. GC 640.]
The Minister indicated that it would be next spring before that report would be published. That commitment was made in response to Amendment 111, tabled by the noble Lord, Lord Low, which would have required Ofsted and the CQC to inspect local offers.
Amendment 215 has a complementary but slightly narrower focus on inspection of specialist support services for children with SEN. The Minister's announcement is to be welcomed. However, it does not go far enough. There is already a strong and clear case for inspection of specialist support services for children with SEN. I believe that the case is especially
strong for low-incidence SEN, including sensory impairments, because many local authorities and schools are unlikely to be as familiar with the specialist support needed by these children. Surely, the department should require Ofsted to begin inspecting these services now rather than delay any further.
Therefore, I ask the Minister the following questions. First, will he set out in more detail the terms of reference and timescales for Ofsted’s study? Will it also explicitly consider the case for inspection of specialist support services for deaf children? Secondly, although Ofsted’s inspection framework for schools already has an SEN focus, does he accept that Ofsted inspectors are unlikely to pick up on issues on the quality of support being received by a school from specialist support services for children with sensory impairment as there is often only one child with that need in the school?
Thirdly, does the Minister accept that because sensory impairment is a low-incidence need requiring targeted and specialist support, local authorities and schools are more reliant on specialist support services for children with sensory impairment? Does it follow that there is a case for more detailed scrutiny of these services?
Finally, given the scale of underachievement experienced by children with sensory impairments, is there a need for more urgent action to drive improvements? Will any new inspection framework be in place before this Bill comes into force? I beg to move.
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