My Lords, I return to the introduction that the noble Baroness, Lady Howe, gave to Amendment 25E and the issue of accountability. Government Amendment 33C is good so far as it goes, but it puts the onus on parents and
young people using the service to police the sufficiency of the local offer. Perhaps my noble friend the Minister could correct me if I were wrong, but so far as I know there is no obligation on local authorities to publish the findings of their own reviews, which, as was emphasised by the noble Baroness, Lady Howe, they are obliged to make under Clause 27. Therefore, there is not the obligation to proactively improve their services that might arise from looking at whether their own reviews were sufficient, and acting on that. That picks up the point made by the noble Baroness, Lady Morris, that there are ways and means whereby innovation comes organically and internally. Equally, she made the point that for most parents there is not the opportunity to move authorities: whether they like it or no, this is the authority that they have to work with.
Again, I pick up the point made by the noble Baroness, Lady Howe, that, when we are talking about special educational needs, we do not mean only the few who have statements and will have the EHC plans now—about 3% of pupils. Something like 15% of pupils are regarded as having special educational needs and are treated under school action and school action plus.
It is now the schools’ responsibility to meet the needs of these pupils. We shall be talking later about the training that is necessary for SENCOs, and so forth. Most schools rely very much indeed on local educational specialists being available. One of the problems with the situation at the moment is that if there is no follow-up on whether or not there is a sufficiency of provision, there is a great danger that local authorities, whose finances, as we know, are being squeezed at present, will not find it necessary to provide outside the needs of those who actually have EHC plans, and that specialists in language, communication and behaviour will not be available to schools for them to be able to recruit to help them with the problems that they meet.
So I am somewhat concerned. As I say, the government amendment is good so far as it goes, but it is unfortunate that it does not follow through to requiring action on the reviews that the local authorities themselves have to make of their own provision.