My Lords, this debate builds on previous discussions which we have had as the Bill has progressed. We had a particularly important debate before Christmas on the need for high-quality data to inform decisions about the necessary support for families. I thank the noble Lord, Lord Low, for his engagement in this area and his promotion of it.
Local authorities have a duty under Section 17 of the Children Act 1989 to maintain a register of disabled children in their area. This will remain unchanged by the Care Bill, which applies only to adults. I recognise, however, that the noble Lord, Lord Low, remains concerned that the registers of disabled children are underused and that they lack the detail needed to support effective planning of services, in particular for blind or visually-impaired children. It may well be that some local authorities do not adequately maintain their registers at the moment. We agree that guidance is important in addressing this issue, which we believe is one of practice rather than legislation, as the noble Lord indicated. We do not think that a new power to issue guidance is necessary.
In our debate before Christmas, noble Lords welcomed amendments to the Bill requiring disabled children to be included within the scope of a number of significant clauses in Part 3. These include: local authorities identifying children and young people in their area who have or may have SEN, in Clause 22; joint commissioning arrangements, in Clause 26; reviewing the special education and care provision that is available locally, in Clause 27, and the local offer, in Clause 30. I am pleased that noble Lords welcomed these amendments, which are a significant change to the Bill. They also provide a greater incentive to use the SEN code of
practice, which provides statutory guidance on these and other duties under the Bill, to include guidance on issues relating to disabled children and young people.
Within the code, we will now require that local authorities have a clear picture of the numbers of disabled children within their area, including in particular data on low-incidence needs such as visual impairment or hearing impairment. We will also make clear—as we have in the existing code—that local authorities remain under a duty to maintain a register of disabled children and that these registers are particularly important in fulfilling the duties that I have just set out.
Placing this guidance within the core SEN code of practice will mean that the duties of the local authority are clearly and explicitly set out in the main statutory document that local authorities and their partners consult practically daily and which they must have regard to. This also avoids the potential for confusing or contradictory requirements across different sets of guidance. The guidance in the code will ensure that there is no doubt over the need to maintain registers of visually-impaired children and link this need clearly to the local authority duties under the Bill. I hope that the noble Lord is reassured and I urge him to withdraw his amendment.