Official Report: Minutes of Evidence

The Chairperson (Mr Weir): We have with us today Tony Rodgers, the assistant director of children's services at the Health and Social Care Board (HSCB); Kieran McShane, the social care commissioning lead at HSCB; Clare McGartland, the lead allied health professions consultant at the Public Health Agency (PHA); Dr Clare Mangan, the regional managing director of the Education Authority; and, squeezing in at the end of the table, Ruth Bell, the assistant senior education officer of the Education Authority. Ladies and gentlemen, you are very welcome to the Committee. I invite you to make an opening statement, and then there will be questions from members.

Mr Tony Rodgers (Health and Social Care Board): Chair, thank you very much. We are glad to be here in front of the Committee. We have made a written submission to you, so we will focus on highlighting a couple of brief points. First, as our submission indicates, in health and social care (HSC), we respond to a range of legislation, predominated in children's services by the requirements of the Children (Northern Ireland) Order 1995.

We feel that the focus of today and our overall investment in collaborative working is evidenced on a number of fronts between HSC and education. Our submission refers to the co-working arrangements in Sure Start; our arrangements in respect of looked-after children, a number of whom are within the statementing process; the early intervention projects, some of which may have been brought to your attention more recently; and, from an overarching perspective, in the Children and Young People's Strategic Partnership (CYPSP).

Our submission makes specific reference to the allied health professions (AHP) review. I know that some members of the Committee received information about that previously, and the chair of the project board, Dr Eddie Rooney, has presented to you. We see that as a very effective collaboration involving the Department of Education (DE), the Education Authority, the PHA, the Health and Social Care Board and the trusts. Through that process, there has been an extensive stakeholder engagement. We think that issues arising from that have clear implications for this legislation. Issues have been highlighted and common themes identified, including the need to strengthen the joint working arrangements, both within education and with parents, children and young people; the need to make the most effective and efficient use of the current resource; and the need for regional consistency. We think that those messages have applicability across the spectrum of special educational needs (SEN).

As in a number of areas, there is a growing demand on services. In the field of allied health professions, for example, there were in excess of 23,000 referrals to the service in April of this year. We remain keen for further engagement with the Department of Education as it rolls forward work on the regulations and guidance. We think that there is potential to strengthen the working relationship, to reduce bureaucracy and duplication and, ultimately, to work collectively on promoting positive outcomes for children.

The Chairperson (Mr Weir): Does anyone want to add anything?

Dr Clare Mangan (Education Authority): If I may, I will say a few words from an educational perspective. First, we are delighted to be here today to assist the Committee on the particular issues raised in the correspondence that we received on 6 June. In an attempt to assist the Committee with the queries raised, a paper was submitted and forwarded to the Committee Clerk.

We tried to focus our submission on the very specific issues raised in the correspondence of 3 June. So, our submission does not contain views pertaining to the Special Educational Needs and Disability (SEND) Bill itself. It is important to state that that is the case. The Education Authority has just been established, on 1 April, and had its first children and young people's services committee meeting last week. In that context, any detailed consideration of the SEND Bill would have to be done through that process and considered in due course. At this point, our submission and evidence relates to your specific queries. Perhaps any issues that relate to SEND could be dealt with at a later stage.

The Chairperson (Mr Weir): OK. The only concern is that the SEND Bill is what we are seeking evidence on today. I appreciate the position of the Education Authority, but there will be questions on the SEND Bill that we would like responses to today.

Dr Mangan: My understanding is that we were asked, further to the correspondence that we received on 3 June, to provide specific responses —

The Chairperson (Mr Weir): Nobody is querying that. I am just saying that this is an evidence session on the SEND Bill, so, clearly, there will be questions on that Bill. That was my point.

Dr Mangan: I just want to clarify the position that officers are in: in the absence of a framework to bring the considerations to committee within the Education Authority, this will be an officer view, as opposed to an organisational view.

Mr Weir: That is fair, Clare. We have both made ourselves very clear.

I have a number of questions. The Education Authority is now established. In the past, a concern raised about statementing and the broader provision for those with special educational needs was that the approach was slightly piecemeal. A postcode lottery might be overstating it, but, depending on where you live in Northern Ireland, the level of response has been slightly different. There is an opportunity created by the establishment of the Education Authority for a much more consistent approach.

I will maybe ask the health professionals whether they believe that that can be matched by health provision to create an opportunity for a fairly consistent approach. Educational psychologists have also taken different attitudes, which meant that the ways of implementing statementing for special educational needs were quite disparate.

Mr T Rodgers: Other colleagues may wish to comment, but I concur with your view that there have probably been some inconsistencies. The genesis of the review of public administration (RPA) was the desire to get to a more consistent position. Some of that will be the effect of the roll-out of the AHP review that I referenced, because that was carried out with a view to achieving much greater consistency.

Ms Clare McGartland (Public Health Agency): The AHP review of child statements was started because of the inconsistencies. We started it about two years ago because we understood that there were different levels of working across the five trusts. Dr Eddie Rooney set up a project board, and there is a project looking at standardising how children with statements of special educational needs are looked after. We are now in year 3 of the process. We started by looking, in year 1, at special schools, and, in year 2, we looked at children with statements in mainstream schools. We are coming to the end of the project and will look at a model or framework for looking after these children consistently.

The Chairperson (Mr Weir): People highlighted fairly consistently, in the early evidence sessions at least, what they saw as gaps in cooperation between the Department of Education and the Department of Health down the years. I think that Tony in particular emphasised that in his evidence. On two or three occasions, he said that strengthening working relationships was critical. I do not think that anyone would disagree with that. A number of bodies told us specifically about the need for legislation. What are your views on whether we need a statutory basis for cooperation, and what is your reaction to that suggestion?

Mr T Rodgers: Well, I suppose —

The Chairperson (Mr Weir): I was going to ask whether we could take silence as acquiescence.

Mr T Rodgers: No. The Children's Services Co-operation Bill, which is also under consideration now, would lend some effect to what you speak of. I am not so sure about the degree to which an area of cooperation requires to be legislated for. Further discussions with DE colleagues about the development of regulations and guidance so that we have a clearer joint understanding, whether of a strategic framework or another model of working that is jointly agreed, would bring greater effect.

The Chairperson (Mr Weir): Let me come back on that. There is a common objective, in that we have a system in which too long is taken between people recognising a problem and action being taken. That can be very frustrating for parents, and it can mean that necessary interventions are slow to arrive, which is not great for the broader educational system. A particular issue that we looked at was the time frame. Witnesses have suggested that, in 81% of delayed cases, the processing of statements was delayed as a result of health advice not being provided in good time. Even the Department referred to that. We are talking about cooperation — should there be specific amendments to require at least a sharing of information, some pooling of budgets or the development of memorandums of understanding (MOUs)? Should we not put something specific in the Bill rather than simply relying on the gradual development of a better working relationship? When it comes to legislation, it will be quite a long time before we get another bite of the cherry.

Mr Kieran McShane (Health and Social Care Board): Thank you for the question. It is important to mention the variation in time frames. We need to go back to the Education (Northern Ireland) Order 1996. This issue was raised with us recently, and we would be keen to drill down into what that 81% looks like. In the 1996 Order, the time frame for the health submission is six weeks, which is extremely tight, and that is from notification to a complex organisation that includes community paediatrics, AHPs, social services etc. From initial discussions with education colleagues, it appears that the 81% is marked against the six-week time frame. Perhaps, within the consideration of a 26-week period, that is quite a significant target for health. I am sure that the resource issues have been well rehearsed in many forms in this Building, so we do not need to go into that. However, in the old legislation, which was drafted in 1996, the time frame from the submission to health to the completion of our report was six weeks. While we seek to expedite these things, there are significant numbers of children with special educational needs coming in against referrals based on an assessed clinical need as well. There are balances to be struck.

The Chairperson (Mr Weir): We need to take a step back on this. We are talking about the pressures of time frames and information. Is there an argument that the whole statementing process is overly complex? Should we be looking at some way to simplify it?

Mr T Rodgers: The answer is probably yes. That is why I mentioned early intervention previously, on the basis that the majority of parents want what is best for their children as quickly as possible. That also pertains to the supports that can be provided to them to maximise their children's potential and make life easier for all concerned. We seek to bring that into effect as quickly as possible in a child's life. There are issues with diagnosis and in the statementing process, but we want to ensure that we provide the supports to parents, as indicated in —

The Chairperson (Mr Weir): I have just a couple of final questions. I know that members are looking to come in with questions. Should we be getting to the stage at which a higher proportion of SEN support is more directly or entirely school-based?

Dr Mangan: Perhaps I might intervene at this point, Chairperson. It is important to emphasise that even within the existing code of practice frameworks for special educational needs, there are, at the earlier stages of the code, reasonable steps and interventions that can take place at school level. A statement is important for some children who have more intensive needs, but other forms of support and intervention can be and are being delivered through effective classroom teaching. It is not about saying that the only means by which children can get support is through the commencement of a statutory assessment process. In addition, we have a range of pupil support services that children and young people can access at the earlier stages of the code. So, support is available without necessarily having to access the statutory assessment.

The Chairperson (Mr Weir): It is interesting. When we talk about special needs education, everybody automatically thinks of statements, but there is a much wider spectrum and level of provision. Do any of you have a position on it? Do you believe that there are too many statements? If so, do you believe that the threshold for a statement is at the right level?

Dr Mangan: There is concern, which I reflected in our submission, that, in Northern Ireland, we currently statement an average of 4·7% of the population, and that figure is rising year-on-year. That has a significant impact on the rest of the education system. We have to look at the thresholds and why we have reached that figure, but we also have to take into consideration the fact that parents seem to have confidence in going down the statutory assessment route to get the resources that they feel their child needs.

A key change that we need to make and a key message that we need to convey — it cannot simply be a message; we must be able to deliver on it — is that support can be available and effective interventions can take place without a statement. Your earlier question was whether more funding should be given to schools through a revision of the common funding formula to ensure that a dimension of that provides support in situ for children with special needs in mainstream schools. That may help to ease the pressure that we are experiencing.

The Chairperson (Mr Weir): From a health professional point of view, do you think that there are, potentially, too many statements? Is the threshold that we have at present correct?

Mr McShane: The statements lie with our education colleagues, who are probably more expert in this, but I will make some observations on the statistics. Currently, my main responsibility is children with disabilities. About 4,500 such children are known to our children's disability teams, but we know that 16,000 children have statements. We do not always equate special educational needs with disability because kids with special educational needs may or may not have a disability. Similarly, we have children with a disability who have no educational needs. However, the figures are that we have about 4,500 children known to our level 3 services, which are the likes of the children's disability services; 6,000 kids with statements; and about 15,000 children on disability living allowance (DLA). There is variation across all those figures.

Our submission makes the point that we are very clear that we should not be indicating that all children are the same. Children need to be considered according to their individual assessment, their needs and parental circumstances. We also need to consider the resources that lie within their community as well as the statutory agencies and how we can galvanise those to provide an outcome.

I do not think that it is for us to comment on the number of statements. However, on need, there has to be a continuum of provision. Where do you need to legislate for that? In some ways, if we were doing this properly, children should be receiving all the services without the statutory requirement. That should be happening per se. However, we should recognise that there will be cohorts of children who require additional support.

Mr Craig: I have a question for Clare and the health people on that specific point. There are some very strange anomalies even within the overall statistic of 4·7%. If you originate from west Belfast, you are almost three times more likely to have a statement than someone from any other part of Northern Ireland. Has research been done on the geographical anomalies in the statementing process? Can you give clear assurances that there is nothing untoward going on there?

Dr Mangan: I will respond from two perspectives. First, the authority has data on the statutory assessment numbers by region. We have data that relates to each of the five regions. We have not yet distilled that into an analysis by ward. What I can say, however, and I think that this is important —

Mr Craig: I have to say that 'Spotlight' seems to be well ahead of you on that one.

Dr Mangan: What we are doing as we move forward —

The Chairperson (Mr Weir): You would not want to believe 'Spotlight'.

Dr Mangan: A paper was presented and approved at the children and young people's services committee of the Education Authority on 4 June. It outlined the transitional steps that we are taking in 2015-16 to address some of the issues that relate to special education. A transactional action that has been agreed is that we want to bring regional consistency to the application of the statutory assessment criteria, and we will do that through the establishment of central statutory assessment panels. Once we get those panels set up, they will have officers from across the region, not from one geographical area. Hopefully, that will give stakeholders, parents and others more confidence that decisions are being made on the basis of the needs of the child and not on any perceptions pertaining to geography.

Ms Maeve McLaughlin: Thank you for your presentation. There is an issue with statementing, and there is a cultural conversation to take place on that. Quite often, it is viewed as a must do and almost the solution to all the issues. That is very apparent and needs to be addressed.

I go back to the issue of formal cooperation. I am particularly interested, Kieran, in your comment that you would like to drill down more into the figures that we looked at and the information that the Chair mentioned — 81% of the delays are because health advice is not given on time. Have you a sense of what that figure, if it is not 81%, might be?

Mr McShane: There are a couple of things there. I will go back to the previous question just for clarification. We collect information on prevalence rates from the Northern Ireland Neighbourhood Information Service (NINIS) and other statutory bodies. We know, for example, that the highest rate of statements in post-primary is in the southern area, which reflects the population change there, and that Belfast is significantly below that.

Significant cooperation occurs at operational level day-to-day. On the six-week time frame that we referenced, to be frank, it is very difficult for us to hit our ministerial targets, which are 13 weeks for a lot of services. We are quite clear that the Children (Northern Ireland) Order is very clearly premised on the fact that we must undertake an assessment of need, and clinical decisions have to be built into that. If there were criteria that all children with SEN should be seen within six weeks but children with a significant clinical need should wait for 13 weeks, I am not sure that that would be entirely equitable or in line with some of the other legislation.

Ms Maeve McLaughlin: I am absolutely aware of the cooperation between the two Departments at various levels. That is all good and positive engagement. However, if the figure is not 81%, what is it?

Mr T Rodgers: It is 81% on the basis of the six-week time frame.

Ms Maeve McLaughlin: What I heard was "We are not quite sure about that figure and would like to drill down into it a wee bit more".

Mr T Rodgers: It was indicated — this information came to the Committee before — that, once the formal request comes from the Department of Education to the trust, the expectation is of a six-week time frame in which the trust —

The Chairperson (Mr Weir): To be fair, you could probably summarise your answer as, "Yes, but", in that it is accurate but does not give the full picture.

Mr T Rodgers: Yes.

Mr McShane: We do not collect information on children with SEN. We collect information on children who are referred for a particular need, whether it is a speech and language need, a social services need or whatever. Some of the information collected is different across the organisations. Perhaps some of the joint working should be about how we collate our information returns.

Ms Maeve McLaughlin: I just want to be clear on this. Our information is that 81% of delays are because health advice is not delivered on time: is that an accurate assessment of where we are?

Ms McGartland: We do not collect that. That information may have come from education colleagues.

Ms Maeve McLaughlin: Is it accurate from the health perspective?

Mr T Rodgers: It is the same source of information. What we say is that we do not collect specific information on the statementing process and the six-week time frame. What I indicated previously was that information came to you suggesting that 81% of cases were not being effected within the six-week time frame, which is what the Department of Education asks of a health and social care trust when it provides a letter asking for a statement.

This is just because the letters requesting us to come here only came to us in the past couple of weeks. I am not even sure whether our databases would allow to us go back. We probably need to ask the trusts to do a trawl and give us an indication as to whether they were able to respond within the six-week time frame.

The Chairperson (Mr Weir): You are saying that you are not in a position to provide figures, but you do not appear to be saying that you have any particular evidence to doubt them.

Mr T Rodgers: No, we know there are significant pressures in terms of responding within a six-week time frame.

Ms Maeve McLaughlin: You would suggest, I imagine, that if it is 81% of delays, that is an issue and a challenge.

Mr T Rodgers: Yes.

Ms Maeve McLaughlin: I want to ask you about formal cooperation. We are mindful of all the work that is going on around the multidisciplinary teams and the review of AHPs and all that. In my view, however, it comes down to the desire or need for more formal statutory cooperation between the two Departments. I am mindful of what Clare said, which is that you can give a view as officers but not in terms of the authority. The initial conversations around developing legislation alluded to the fact that agreement around statutory cooperation or statutory duty had not been endorsed by the Health Department. Is there a view that in essence, the Health Department was not up for formal cooperation?

Mr T Rodgers: We are not here to speak on behalf of the Department, so that would need to be put through to it.

Ms Maeve McLaughlin: Do you have a view?

Mr T Rodgers: We have a view, in that we are very clear about wanting to work collaboratively and cooperatively to effect best change. Whether that requires legislative empowerment is the issue. I am not convinced that putting the duty to cooperate in the legislation is a requirement at this juncture. The statementing process and its origins, which are now quite dated, going back to the original order, could be. That is why I have referenced the development of the regulations and guidance and some of the other areas of cooperation, such as Sure Start, early intervention and looked-after children, which have not been brought into effect through legislative mandate but through people working collaboratively, understanding what is in the best interests of children and trying to take it forward on that basis. That is simply the point that I am making, but I am very clear that we need to work collaboratively if we are going to bring this through to maximum effect.

Ms Maeve McLaughlin: If you are not convinced that it is a statutory requirement, has there been an analysis done of what a statutory duty would bring from either Department?

Mr T Rodgers: Not in particular; I am simply offering a personal opinion. I have referenced it previously. From your perspective, it may be that that would make a difference, but all I am saying is that it introduces another statutory duty and it may, de facto, introduce another bit of bureaucracy and may put additional things in the way. It is about whether it produces positive outcomes or means that we just need to respond to more statute and it takes us a bit longer to do it.

Ms Maeve McLaughlin: May I come back on that, Chair? It may provide additional bureaucracy and it may or may not be better; that is the essence of my question. Do we have a robust analysis that would suggest what a statutory duty would provide or could do? Are we likely to see any of that?

Mr McShane: We already have a statutory duty in children's services in the Children (Northern Ireland) Order 1995, which is around the principles on the assessment of need. Article 17 of the Order outlines the duty to undertake the assessment, which determines what service is required. That becomes a statutory duty on the basis of the assessment for health. That is a broad bit around all the children's services. There is an existing statutory function around health and social care and clinical need. The issue of the duty to cooperate would need to be looked at in terms of the interface with the other bits —

The Chairperson (Mr Weir): Kieran, this may be something that applies more at a departmental level, so this may be an unfair question for you, but what level of scoping exercise is being done to say that at one level there is acceptance of a need for a strengthened relationship? In and of itself, there must be some implications for what that will mean in practice. The next level up from that is some form of statutory duty. One of the things that put us in a slightly grey area is, if you are talking about a statutory duty, what particular things is that based on? I would like to think that there had been some level of scoping exercise to say what the various implications are of potential things around this.

It is fairly obvious that, whether there are any changes made or not, it is something that would clearly be considered for amendment, and, if not amended, at the very least there seems to be an acceptance that there needs to be a step change in the level of cooperation. I appreciate that you may be the wrong people to be throwing this at, but I would have liked to have seen some level of scoping exercise to see what all that would mean in practice, what the resource implications would be and how it would impact on bureaucracy/the process.

Mr T Rodgers: The other thing is whether the view is that the delay in trusts — they can respond on this as well — being able to provide a response within the six-week time frame does not equate to a lack of cooperation.

The Chairperson (Mr Weir): I will bring in Clare in a moment on that, but maybe it does in a different way. If there is a time frame that says you should be responding in, for example, six weeks, and 81% of cases are not, maybe for very good reasons, that suggests a different form of lack of cooperation that comes from the time frame being completely unrealistic.

In a lot of things in Government we will see particular targets. For example, with train timetables the target might be 90% of 95%. You can pick whatever statistic you want. In a lot of cases, the level is pitched around 80%, 90%, 95% or 99%. If you are getting a target that has been established as part of a system and 81% of cases are outside that target, perhaps one of the questions should be about whether there has been enough proper discussion and joined-up cooperation to say, "Quite frankly, the six-week target, with the best will in the world, is so unrealistic and quite frankly needs to change." That may be the lack of cooperation at that level.

Mr T Rodgers: I concur with that view. The issue, going back to what Maeve was asking, is whether or not a statutory duty is required to effect that type of change.

The Chairperson (Mr Weir): Clare, you wanted in from an education perspective.

Dr Mangan: In a sense, I wanted to take a little step back. There is already within the legislation the requirement to provide advice within the time frames that are set. The issue, if we really want to make a change and ensure that children access services and support in a more expedient way, which should ultimately be the goal around this, is less about another piece of legislation and more about what we can do to operationalise the steps that need to be put in place to effect the submission of advice within that time frame.

I will give you some examples. Over the past number of years, across some of the legacy education and library boards, staff within education provided training to allied health professionals from the point of view of understanding the statutory duty that they have in relation to the submission of advice, whether it is speech and language therapy, physio and so forth, and strengthening the perspective that the timely submission of advice is actually important. That is something that needs to be done in a much more coherent way across the region if we are going to get the level of impact that we really need. Also, for some children, there are difficulties around the submission of advice that is done too soon where you simply are meeting the timeline. Actually, if the child is still going through a process of diagnosis it may be that, for some children, six weeks is not the window frame that results in the most appropriate advice being submitted. I think that, at the end of the day, whatever we do, it ultimately should be about enabling children who need services to access them. In a sense, that should be core to the work that we do.

The Chairperson (Mr Weir): That is fair enough. If we are looking at that issue at a broader level, we will have to tackle the issue of whether something that is either more refined or, alternatively, is additional in terms of a statutory requirement acts as a degree of red herring and is seen as the solution when it does not change what happens operationally. On the flip side of the coin, the counterargument will be that, with the best will in the world, in any Department or agency, if something is made a statutory requirement, there is maybe some evidence across different Departments that they sometimes take it a bit more seriously than if it is simply a desire to do a particular thing.

Mr McShane: Chair, this might be slightly cheeky because you have called us here today to answer questions, but maybe there is a question for members as well. You talk about a statutory duty in relation to one part of children's services. By creating that, do you then create different thresholds or different criteria for different children within that? I suppose that the issue around statutory duty is where that stops and finishes in terms of the other parts of the interface with the various agencies.

The Chairperson (Mr Weir): I understand that. I think that, whatever happens, things have to be looked at in a wider context. As a Committee, our job is very specifically to scrutinise a particular piece of legislation and see what needs to be put within that. I suppose that we are teasing out these issues.

Seán has been waiting very patiently.

Mr S Rogers: Most of my points have been covered. I am glad, Clare, that you brought it back to the child and to the parent. In my office and so on, the concern that I see is the gap between referral and actual support. If your child has language difficulties, that six months that it might take from a referral to seeing a speech therapist is the big issue. I acknowledge the fantastic work that speech therapists do, but added to that issue is that maybe when the child goes back in six months' time they will have a different speech therapist for that half an hour. It takes 15 minutes to get to know the child, and so on.

Maeve touched on my question. From the parents' perspective and the child's perspective, we know that early intervention is key and all that. I know that there will be closer alignment and fewer inconsistencies with one Education Authority instead of five boards. I take that point. Where will we see the improvement in the system if we do not have a statutory duty between health and education? How will we ensure that there will be closer alignment and that the support will be there?

Dr Mangan: I will start, if I may, Mr Rogers. Part of the issue should be that children should be getting assistance and support at an early stage. That support should be in place without a statement. I think that the anxiety that parents feel and express is that, in the absence of a statement, they feel that they will not get a service. The issue really is of how we define early intervention. I say that from the point of view that there are various forms of support that can be put in place early, but parents have to have confidence in those early interventions as something that is having an impact in a positive way for the particular needs of their child. In reality, the statutory assessment process should only really be for those children who have much more intensive needs that are likely to be longer-term needs. In a sense, my hope in the future in relation to special needs in Northern Ireland is that more children who have needs get those needs met earlier, but without recourse to what is perceived to be a very complex and stressful process.

Ms McGartland: From a health perspective, I totally agree with you. Early intervention is very important. We certainly do not want children waiting when they need intervention. There are a lot of things going on with health, such as the early intervention transformation programme, which looks at babies and toddlers getting ready for school; and Sure Start, where we are working at trying to capacity-build with others to pick up conditions much earlier. You really do not want children getting into a school setting with a difficulty that we really should be able to pick up in a preschool.

Following on from some of the discussions earlier about the work that Dr Rooney is leading in the AHP review, we are working very closely with the Department of Health, the Department of Education, health colleagues and trust colleagues. There is also a professional stakeholder group where we have principals, trust colleagues and professional colleagues, trying to do whatever we can to standardise and have regional consistency in how we approach all of this. We are in the process of looking at regional training for AHP colleagues along with educational colleagues to try and speed up what is obviously an — [Inaudible.]

Mr S Rogers: The good practice that is taking place with looked-after children in Sure Start — what are the opportunities for that to be made available to all other children who have specific learning difficulties?

Ms McGartland: I am sorry, I am not clear —

Mr S Rogers: I know of the good work that Sure Start does and the really good early intervention. How are things going to improve in terms of having that facility available for all the other children that are not part of a Sure Start programme?

Ms McGartland: This has come up in discussions before. Certainly, with Sure Start, it is for certain areas. The early intervention transformation programme will be about all children, and there will be standardised training and linkages through that. We have to tackle all of the children.

Mr S Rogers: Can you send us some information on that early intervention programme, please?

Ms McGartland: Absolutely.

Mr McShane: It is important to note that it is not solely Health and Education involved in the early intervention transformation programme. All the Departments, including Leisure and Culture, are taking a very joined-up approach to that. They have been involved, and we are keen to look at that, because children's lives impact on a number of areas and it is important that we coordinate those. It is back to the question of where the statutory function begins and ends, and who is included.

The Chairperson (Mr Weir): Robin?

Mr Newton: That is all right, Chair. Seán has actually raised a number of the points that I was going to raise, so I am content.

The Chairperson (Mr Weir): The issue is always getting your ETIs and your DETIs mixed up. In correspondence to the Committee, DE indicated that ETI had recommended:

of SEN children — she admitted it is the stage 3 side of things — ETI has confirmed that it is:

Clare, can you explain the position of the Education Authority around prioritisation, and the consequences for schools if they do not follow EA advice on the matter?

Dr Mangan: First, if a pupil is enrolled in a school, it is the school's responsibility to meet the child's needs. I know that can be a difficult challenge for some schools, but the reality is that the pupil is enrolled in a particular school and it is the duty of the school to meet the child's needs. In that context, support is available in mainstream schools at the earlier stages of the code of practice: stages 1, 2 and 3. At stage 3, there can also be consideration of input from educational psychologists from across the region.

Increasingly, within the support and consultation framework that educational psychologists provide to a range of settings, including nurseries, there is a discussion about the children that the principal or the SENCO of a school may be concerned about. Within that discussion, advice is given in relation to those children who may not necessarily be assessed at that time, but what is encouraged as part of that process is to identify the child who has the most significant need. In other words, if the school is finding it challenging or difficult to meet that need, just as if somebody arrived at A&E and was deemed to have more challenging presentation, they would be seen at an earlier stage. It is not to say that nothing should happen with the other children. Support and interventions should still be put in place, and it should not be about waiting for the next time a professional visits.

So there are ongoing interventions and supports that can be delivered but, in the intervening period, those children who need the support most will be supported. Generally, we encourage the schools to give that at an earlier stage and for the support services provided by the authority to work towards delivering it. If there is a child in a school who is finding it very stressful and difficult, it has an impact not only on that child but on the other children in the classroom and, indeed, on the classroom teacher. So we have to make a professional judgement, but it is based on a detailed discussion and cooperation between the school and the psychologist in relation to what is the best step forward.

The Chairperson (Mr Weir): The final question that I want to ask is this. In the issue of delays, one of the major aspects that have been pulled out has been the limited availability of educational psychology services. Is that something that the Education Authority accepts has been a problem until now? You do not?

Dr Mangan: If you think —

The Chairperson (Mr Weir): My follow-up question would be whether the multidisciplinary support teams help to solve that problem, but if you do not accept that there is a problem in the first place —

Dr Mangan: You have to bear in mind that, in the submission that was made, it was indicated that the number of children who have been issued with statements of special educational need has increased over the past 20 years and even over the past three years. Every time a statement is issued, educational psychology advice is an integral part of the professional advice that is considered. So the reality is that, in terms of the increase in statements, there has been educational psychology advice issued for each one of those statements.

The Chairperson (Mr Weir): Is that not an answer to a slightly different question, which is not whether there are educational psychologists who will process the cases. The growth in the number of statements is one thing, but does it mean that the speed of turnaround is in any way delayed because of limited availability?

Dr Mangan: No. The important point is that the educational psychologists are contributing to the statutory assessment process. They, too, have a requirement to submit their advice within the six-week time frame. Unlike other professional groupings, they do not have an exemption; they have a requirement to submit their advice within the six weeks. What I am really saying is that not only were they there, but the percentage of educational advices within the six weeks is very high. The reason why that is the case is that educational psychology is a statutory service. Educational psychologists recognise their statutory duty in relation to the timeline and prioritise statutory assessment work within the profile of the educational psychology service targets.

The Chairperson (Mr Weir): Have the health representatives anything to add to that?

Mr McShane: I always bow to the educational psychologist sitting at the side here. Certainly, it is one of the areas that we should be looking at as we move forward: the interface to ensure that there is no duplication. Education has a number of services, and we have a number of services. In the future, we should perhaps be asking, as times are tough, how we can deliver within both our resources.

The Chairperson (Mr Weir): If only there were some mechanism of cooperating better in relation to that.

Mr McShane: I think that a lot has been done. You mentioned the multidisciplinary teams, the work on ASD, Sure Start and the fact that, for behavioural support, we actually have a number of joint teams currently in place in Northern Ireland which do not seem to hit the limelight. We have staff working within the same team from both education and health perspectives, with one aim, which is about an outcome for the child.

Let me just make the point again around the statutory function. The Committee will not want there to be any postcode lotteries or particular silos. Just consider that in terms of the statutory function. No group of children should become disadvantaged because other children are prioritised. I think that it is really clear, from the case law that has been set through judicial reviews, that we must undertake the assessment of need, and that will dictate what the outcome of services should look like.

The Chairperson (Mr Weir): OK, one final question. I appreciate that your expertise is on the delivery of various services on the ground and how things are implemented etc. While a lot of this will depend on regulations and a code of practice and what happens from a practical implementation point of view, in the short term, our focus is the legislation itself: whether it is right, and whether any changes need to be made. Have you any suggestions for amendments or changes for what is in front of us?

Mr McShane: There is the point that we made in the submission about the change of wording from "shall" to "may" in clause 4 and what the implications of that might be for health. On the other side around that, in terms of the financial schedule, it has not actually given any indication of what the particular implications are for the health budget.

The Chairperson (Mr Weir): OK. At Consideration Stage, we will look at amendments. There may be certain things that lie outside the exact wording of the legislation but may, ultimately, be recommendations.

Dr Mangan: I would be reluctant to make any comments on the Bill in the absence of having had further discussion with members of the Education Authority pertaining to it. If I may, on this occasion, I would prefer not to.

The Chairperson (Mr Weir): OK. I think that the Fifth Amendment on this occasion is very understandable. Thank you very much for your evidence. It has been a very useful session.