Supplementary written evidence from the National Deaf Children’s Society

Summary

1. The submission sets out four key recommendations which we would like to see reflected in the Education Committee’s forthcoming report on special educational needs and disabilities (SEND):

1. the Comprehensive Spending Review must provide significant additional investment into the High Needs block, addresses concerns around how the national funding formula for schools is working and resolves funding issues in post-16 education
2. the Department for Education must do more to monitor and address issues around the local authority specialist SEND workforce. Specifically, we would welcome a recommendation around the need to urgently set up a bursary scheme to fund the training costs of new Teachers of the Deaf
3. the Department for Education, Ofsted and the Care Quality Commission should commit to continuing local area SEND inspections beyond 2021, and expanding their reach so that they look at local authority specialist SEND services in more detail than is done at present
4. the Department for Education must do more to broker the regional commissioning of services for children with low incidence needs.

2. In this submission, we also take the opportunity to update a few statistics that were included in our original submission last year.

3. We would like to thank the Committee for the opportunity to give written and oral evidence, and also for giving two young deaf people the opportunity to speak directly to Committee members. We look forward to reading the final Committee report and helping to ensure it help leads to meaningful change for deaf children.

Investment

1)    From the perspective of deaf children, the top issue continues to be around lack of funding available to ensure they receive the specialist support they need. As noted in our original response, we have been tracking local authority spending on specialist education services for deaf children since 2011. Our results continue to paint a picture of a worsening crisis with services under increasing pressure in many areas. Initial analysis shows that this year, 41% of services plan to cut or freeze their budget, with £1.1m being lost. In these areas, budgets are being cut by an average of 7%. Since 2014, over a third of services (34%) have reduced their budgets, with over £6.3m being lost in these areas. On average, these local authorities have cut their budgets by 17%. A number of local authorities have still yet to provide us with information on their plans for this year which means these figures may rise.

2)    It is clear that these cuts are having an impact on the front-line services that deaf children receive. Research indicates that the average caseload for each Teacher of the Deaf has risen from 44 children to 60 between 2013 and 2018[i]. In addition, a survey[ii] of over 600 Teachers of the Deaf in January 2019 found that:

a)    85% feel their workload has increased since 2014, with 56% saying it has increased significantly

b)    58% reported there was less support for deaf children now, compared to 2014.

3)    A survey[iii] of parents of deaf children in November 2018, which received over 1,000 responses also found:

a)    82% say there is not enough funding of education support for deaf children in their area

b)    42% of parents feel that things have got worse for their deaf child since 2014 – just 5% say they have got better

c)     93% of parents are worried about the future of their deaf child’s support.

4)    As set out in our original submission, we believe that these cuts are being driven by wider pressures around special educational needs and disabilities (SEND) funding. The Department for Education has protected ‘high needs’ funding to support children with SEND in cash terms, but the budget has not been adjusted to reflect:

a)    the rising number of children and young people requiring additional support. Updated government figures show that the number of school-aged deaf children with special educational needs has risen by 12% since 2015[iv]. More widely, the number of all children with statements or Education, Health and Care (EHC) plans increased by 33% between 2015 and 2018[v].  

b)    greater local authority responsibilities to support young people with SEND, aged between 16 and 25, following the SEND reforms introduced through the Children and Families Act 2014. Nearly three quarters (74%) of those with a new statement or EHC plan since 2014 fall in the 16-25 age group[vi]. Despite this, many specialist education services for deaf children still report to us that they are not funded to provide support to deaf young people in further education.

c)     a trend towards many more children being placed in special schools. The number of children with statements or EHC plans in special schools rose by 16% between 2015 and 2018[vii].

5)    Updated figures from SEND Tribunals also indicate that SEND funding has been insufficient to meet increasing demands. The data shows an 80% increase in appeals registered with the Tribunal since 2014/15. In addition, since then, the proportion of decisions made by the Tribunal in favour of families ranged between 86% and 89%.

6)    In light of this, we would welcome a recommendation from the Education Committee that the Comprehensive Spending Review must provide significant additional investment into the High Needs block.

7)    We would also welcome a recommendation that the Government address concerns around how the national funding formula for schools is working. As set out in our original submission, the formula means that 99.5% of the schools block is now ring-fenced. The remaining 0.5% can only be transferred to the high needs block (which funds SEND support services) with the agreement of the Schools Forum. This ring-fencing is making it harder for local authorities to move funding to respond to growing SEND pressures.

8)    Updated figures show that a large number of local authorities are applying to the Department for permission to overrule the Schools Forum and/or go beyond 0.5%. We understand that 38 local authorities made a formal request for ‘disapplication’ of the ring-fence this year, of which 31 were allowed to proceed.[viii]

9)    We continue to be concerned that the ring-fence may introduce a perverse incentive for schools to ‘off-load’ children with SEND out of mainstream settings. If a pupil moves from a mainstream maintained school to a special school, local authorities become responsible for commissioning and funding a place. The ring-fence reduces the flexibility that local authorities previously had to ‘claw-back’ funding from schools to respond to any emerging issues like this and exacerbates the funding pressures being faced by local authorities.

10)            We recommend that, as part of the Comprehensive Spending Review, HM Treasury explore with the Department for Education:

a)    whether the ring-fence can be relaxed or removed

b)    whether and how the Schools Forum should include more SEND representation, and become more accountable and transparent

c)     if the ring-fence is to continue, to ensure that the baseline budgets for the high needs block are ‘reset’ in each area to reflect decisions made in previous years by the Schools Forum and/or the Secretary of State on disapplying the ring-fence.

11)            Any additional investment must also be sufficient to resolve ongoing funding issues in post-16 education. As set out in our original response, SEND funding for mainstream post-16 providers is provided where a young person has been commissioned a place using high needs funding. In practice, this means that, in many areas, colleges will only receive funding for young people if they have an EHC plan. Government figures suggest that more than 85% of deaf young people[ix] do not have an EHC plan.

12)            Whilst colleges receive ‘disadvantage’ funding which can be used to meet the needs of disabled young people without an EHC plan, it is not restricted to this purpose, nor do we believe it is set at a sufficient level.

13)            If SEND funding is, in practice, restricted to those with an EHC plan, this means that a large number of deaf young people are less likely to get the support they need to access the curriculum, such as a radio aid to help with additional amplification or note takers. This raises serious questions about the extent to which deaf young people in further education are receiving the support they need. Research[x] published in 2015 already indicated concerns in this area. For example, it found that one quarter of deaf young people did not gain any qualification whilst in further education. In addition, deaf young people were twice as likely to drop out as their peers.

Specialist SEND workforce and Teachers of the Deaf

14)            Evidence commissioned by the Department for Education[xi], reports from Ofsted[xii] and an international literature review[xiii] all talk of the importance of the Qualified Teacher of the Deaf role. Parents of deaf children also regularly affirm the importance of this role in consultation exercises and surveys with the National Deaf Children’s Society.

15)            Since we submitted our response to the Education Committee, the number of Qualified Teachers of the Deaf has fallen further. Updated figures show that in 2018, there were 899 Qualified Teachers of the Deaf working in a peripatetic role or in resource provisions. This total has now fallen by 15% since 2011. It also remains the case that over half of Teachers of the Deaf are over the age of 50 and hence are due to retire in the next 10 to 15 years[xiv]. 

16)            Many services are telling us that they cannot recruit. In 2018, 32% of services reported difficulties in recruiting new Teachers of the Deaf or arranging supply cover over the previous 12 months[xv]. A 2016 report[xvi], funded by the Department for Education, found that lack of funding for training is a major factor inhibiting the supply of new Teachers of the Deaf.

17)            We believe a national systemic approach is needed to address this growing crisis. There is little incentive for local authorities to be proactive in ensuring there are sufficient numbers of Teachers of the Deaf being trained to meet future needs. Many will not be able to meet the financial cost of training new staff whilst also employing someone who has yet to retire.

18)            We would welcome a recommendation from the Education Committee that the Department for Education do more to monitor and address issues around the local authority specialist SEND workforce. Specifically, we would welcome a recommendation around the need to urgently set up a bursary scheme to fund the training costs of new Teachers of the Deaf. £3.3m would fund the cost of 400 new Teachers of the Deaf over the next three years. A more detailed proposal has already been submitted to the Department for Education and is available on request.

Strengthen the accountability framework

19)            We believe that any additional investment must be accompanied by stronger accountability around how the funding is spent. In particular, we are keen to see a much stronger focus on outcomes.

20)            In response to a survey of parents of deaf children in November 2018, 67% told us they don’t have enough information about the quality of education services for deaf children in their area[xvii].

21)            In 2016, Ofsted and the Care Quality Commission introduced new inspections of local area provision for children with SEND, two years after the SEND reforms were passed. However:

a)    it has not yet been confirmed whether Ofsted will receive funding to continue the existing inspections beyond the existing five-year programme. Without this commitment, we feel there will be little incentive for local authorities that have already been inspected to maintain or improve the quality of SEND provision if they believe that they will not be inspected again.

b)    only around half of the inspection reports to date have made any reference to deaf children and even then, references tend not to be more than a brief sentence[xviii]. This means that we still do not have detailed information on the quality of specialist education services for deaf children. To address this, we would like Ofsted to begin ad-hoc in-depth inspections of specific services for different groups of children with SEND, alongside the existing inspections.

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22)            It is also important that the accountability system has the confidence of parents. Currently around half of all local areas are ‘failing’ the inspection and being required to produce written statements of action to show how they will improve. We believe that any follow-up action by Ofsted and the Department for Education to ensure these failings are addressed need to be robust and credible. Parents of deaf children will expect consequences to be as severe as if, for example, a school was in special measures. Parents will also be looking for action to be taken against local authorities that use SEND funding to ‘fight’ parents in SEND Tribunals, when Tribunals so consistently find in favour of parents. However, currently, it is unclear what powers of intervention are available to Ofsted and/or the Department. It is also unclear if and when such powers will be used.

23)          We would welcome a recommendation by the Education Committee that the Department for Education, Ofsted and the Care Quality Commission should commit to continuing local area SEND inspections beyond 2021, and expanding their reach so that they look at local authority specialist SEND services in more detail than is done at present.

24)          We would also welcome a recommendation that the Department for Education be required to set out a robust and credible plan of action for addressing failings in local authority SEND provision.

Regional commissioning

25)            There has been much focus on how education and health services should work together in recent years. However, there has been less attention on the regional commissioning of services across local areas and communities.

26)            As deafness is a low incidence disability, we feel it would be more effective for smaller services to work together to meet the diverse needs of deaf children in their area. In leading to economies of scale, this approach could result in funding being released to provide support to more deaf children. It could also lead to more effective commissioning of special school placements for deaf children and better continuity of support in areas (such as London) where deaf children are likely to be educated outside of their home authority.

27)            There are just 9 consortia delivering education support services for deaf children in England – the largest is in Berkshire.

28)            Paragraph 3.68 of the SEND Code of Practice states that “partners should consider strategic planning and commissioning of services or placements for children and young people with high levels of need across groups of authorities, or at a regional level”. However, since the Code was published, there has been no noticeable increase in the extent to which services and provision for deaf children are regionally commissioned. Indeed, existing examples of regional consortia (including Berkshire) appear to be increasingly under threat due to cuts and service reviews. This suggests that the Department for Education should do more to broker and incentivise local authorities to work together in this way. In particular, we feel the Department should create a new legal duty on local authorities to regionally commission services and provision for children with low incidence needs.

29)            We would welcome a recommendation by the Education Committee that the Department for Education do more to broker the regional commissioning of services for children with low incidence needs.

May 2019

Endnotes