My Lords, I, too, support all the amendments in this group. If the Bill really is to improve the position of families of children with SEN in their struggle to give their children the best start in life then it must provide some certainty. Assurances of the provision which a local authority expects to be available are useless if they turn out to be just warm words. Parents need to know what is available, and families must know that there is a benchmark below which standards are not allowed to fall.
Let us not forget that the vast majority of people who find themselves as the parent of a disabled child will have no previous knowledge of the world of special educational need. They will not know what services that their child might need should be available and will have no knowledge of the structure of provision or the standards that they should expect. They will have to learn all of this at a time of great stress and amid all the other demands of family and work life. On Amendment 25E, I particularly support the comments of the noble Baroness, Lady Howe, on the importance of accountability regarding the local offer. As the Education Select Committee said, the importance of the local offer cannot be overestimated.
Given that Clause 30 relates to the local offer as an information offer and not to the actual provision contained in it, can the Minister explain exactly how local authorities will publish their response and what action they intend to take following parents’ comments about the local offer? How will that actually lead to improvements to the services being made? Unless the Minister agrees to move the Government’s Amendment 33C to Clause 27, what do the Government expect local authorities to do with comments from parents about service provision? Is there anything in the Bill to ensure that these comments will be fed into the review of service provision referred to in Clause 27? Moreover, will local authorities clearly explain to parents that they can comment on the local offer only as a source of information and not the provision itself?
As the noble Baroness, Lady Howe, stated, the local offer will be relied upon by 1.4 million children with SEN, namely those without a statement or an EHC plan. Can the Minister therefore clarify, if the child does not have a plan and a local authority publishes a response and follow-up action which was unsatisfactory to parents, are there any further mechanisms in place to ensure that parents’ concerns are addressed?
By the Government’s own figures, the total cost to the taxpayer of parents taking cases to an SEN tribunal is more than £30 million a year. Given this substantial cost, is it not imperative that disputes between parents and local authorities are resolved at the earliest possible opportunity? Amendment 25E, which requires parents, local authorities and others to work together and develop an action plan, would enable this to happen, and I urge the Government to accept it.
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