Official Report: Minutes of Evidence

The Chairperson (Mr Mathison): For Committee members' benefit, the purpose of today's briefing is to look at the issue of special educational needs placements, particularly the lessons learned from what has gone before, the preparatory work that is under way for future planning and any of the associated challenges.

Joining us from the Education Authority (EA) are Dale Hanna, the chief operations officer; Peter Canavan, the programme director of SEN placements; and Tomas Adell, the chief transformation officer. You are all very welcome. Apologies for the delay. For once, it was not an evidence session that overran. Rather, all the items that we had on our agenda before this session took an incredible amount of time to get through. I therefore appreciate your patience.

I will hand over to you to make an initial 10-minute presentation, and we will move on to questions from members.

Mr Dale Hanna (Education Authority): Chair, I will make the briefest of introductory comments, because I know that it is probably better to get to questions so that we can get into the debate with members.

At the outset, I will reiterate, on behalf of the Education Authority, that, as an organisation that supports children with special needs, SEN placements are our absolute number-one priority. Today, I am joined by our new chief transformation officer, Tomas Adell, whose initial focus is on working with the Department of Education to deliver the necessary transformation to our SEN system. As an executive team, we have sought to support that work by ensuring that Tomas can focus primarily on it. The capacity and placements work will sit with me. On the Education Authority's executive team, there are therefore two chief officers with a focus on SEN: to achieve the delivery that we need for the children on capacity in the here and now and to do the medium- to longer-term piece. I reiterate that, as an organisation, we are really focused on trying to make improvements for our SEN children.

I felt a little bit conflicted about placements when thinking about what I was going to say today. We have talked about it before and have provided the numbers. This year, we have created over 1,370 places. That has involved a huge effort from the teams in the Education Authority. It has involved a huge effort with the schools. About 120 schools and an additional 150 classes have been involved. Yes, on the headline figure, we have got to zero. I know that some people might say, "That is a box ticked. You have got to zero". The reality, however, is that we know that it is not enough and that it has not been good enough, because there have been delays in placing some of those children. We know that what we are doing is stretching existing capacity across many schools that have already stepped up to the plate. On the one hand, we have done a huge amount, but, on the other hand, there is still so much more to do. I have to recognise, however, that the staff in our teams have worked really hard to achieve what we have achieved.

We are already focused on September 2026. I know that there is a narrative out there that we leave planning to the last minute. That is not the case. We are constantly planning, year-on-year, to try to achieve what we can in order to increase capacity across the system.

On Monday, Dr Graham Gault from the National Association of Head Teachers (NAHT) talked about sending an open letter to the Minister, the Department and the EA. We welcome that. It really is about moving to a new phase, and we believe that, through engagement, we can really turn the dial on securing placements for next year. We are going to work really hard. I have already reached out to the Northern Ireland Teachers' Council (NITC) to put in place arrangements to set up a meeting. We really want to work with our trade union partners. It is probably telling that it looks as though the system broadly is coalescing around the fact that we need to have more schools step up to the plate and take on board specialist provisions. From the Education Authority's point of view, our commitment is that if we can do that early and get it done over the next eight to 10 weeks, we can have a much more organised and timely transition for children and young people next year.

I know that there is a pressure on schools. I get that there is a pressure on school leaders, but my focus is on the children and young people. I want those children and their parents to experience a normal transition to their new school in September 2026. We are optimistic. I know that school leaders will step up to the plate, and we will work really hard to get us to September 2026. I will ask Tomas to say a little bit from his perspective.

Dr Tomas Adell (Education Authority): It is great to be here, and thank you for inviting us. It is great to be in a role in which I have the opportunity to support the transformation of special educational needs provision. It is a great opportunity and a great honour. Splitting the work on placements and on SEN transformation in the Education Authority is really significant. It means that we can build capacity to help support the immediate needs of children but also to look at how we can improve outcomes for children in the future. That is what we want to do. Our aim is to have better outcomes for all children, including children with special educational needs. That transformation is a key priority for the Education Authority and the Department. Working jointly, we are keen to implement the reform agenda and to get better outcomes for children and young people.

You have our briefing paper, so I will not go through it in detail. I will, however, highlight the point that the local impact teams went live on Monday of this week. The impact teams are one of the building blocks for having transformation in practice. They are evidence of a great piece of work being done to look into what children need by combining eight services into one service that looks to focus on the child rather than on the service title. It is not the end product, however. Rather, it is a starting point to find better outcomes for children. It is a child-centred approach, whereby we remove barriers so that staff can work better for children. The staff are already doing great work, but we want to remove the barriers so that they can provide tailored support for children. That will mean that the outcomes of the work will be even better. The work is not perfect, and we are working on it, and we will improve the teams. It is the first stage of building a platform for other work.

The transformation of SEN provision is not just about transforming what is happening for children but about transforming how the EA works. That is really important. We have a huge number of dedicated staff who work really hard, but the organisation does not always support its staff to deliver the best outcomes. The internal transformation of our electronic systems by digitising them is a good example of that. We have three different systems, which entails a lot of manual input. We will combine them into one system, which will go live in the second term. We will then have a much more streamlined system, and that will allow staff to spend time focusing on children rather than on paperwork. Staff will therefore be focusing on the right things. That support will help parents see what is happening with their children in real time. It will also allow our staff to speak with parents in order to work towards better outcomes for their children. That will have a positive effect, and it is another cornerstone on which we can build future transformation internally.

I am not going to talk about those things in detail, because they are contained in the briefing paper. We are now happy to take questions on placements, transformation and everything else.

The Chairperson (Mr Mathison): Thank you. I will focus on placements initially. Other members may wish to broaden the discussion with their questions, but I will stick with placements in the first instance.

I acknowledge the work that has been done to deliver places. Anybody who was working out of their constituency office over the summer will understand the level of distress that parents were experiencing then. There was a sense that EA staff were working at a pitch and pace on a volume of work that was probably not ideal for their well-being. It is therefore important to note that it seemed as though a huge effort was being channelled into delivering places. That does not mean, however, that the outcome is necessarily where we wanted it to land. The raw numbers are great, but, Dale, you have acknowledged that the journey to get us to that point is not the journey that any of us wants to be on. That is clear, and I do not think that anybody is trying to say anything other than that.

The intervention from the NAHT was very welcome. I want to be clear that I believe that there is room for positivity and that there is a window of opportunity. We heard that really clearly from the Autism Reviewer, and I welcome that. She said that she has hope but that she feels that the situation is fragile. We therefore have to take the opportunity that we have now. From looking at the planning for September 2026, I can see that there is a whole range of other issues in the system. I want to tease out a discussion on that fragility, if that is OK, just to get a sense of how we are managing it.

The intervention from NAHT was welcome, but there is a differential in opinion. Dale, you are clearly saying, "We always plan early. We go early. We are doing this on a cycle", but the NAHT letter was saying, "This happens too late". I do not know whether both those things can be true at the same time, and I do not really want to explore that. In where we are now, if you are saying that you get in early, what barriers are you facing? If everybody is at the table and engaging, what are the barriers to delivering placements on a planned basis? Is it the autonomy of schools? Is it your resource? Is it that you do not know the number of children? Help me to understand what the barriers are.

Mr Hanna: Working backwards on that, Chair, it is not necessarily about not knowing the numbers. As the year progresses, we refine the numbers. We will broadly know them. As we have said before, we think that there are another 1,200, 1,300 or 1,400 children. We will know where the pressure areas are. They will be similar areas: greater Belfast, Newry and Down —.

The Chairperson (Mr Mathison): There is no data gap, really.

Mr Hanna: No, there is no data gap.

The Chairperson (Mr Mathison): So it is not the numbers. Is it schools' autonomy? Is it resource?

Mr Hanna: My observation is that schools are reluctant, because they feel that they will be unsupported. It is one of those paradoxes. By the time that we get to April or May, the EA has less time to put in place the arrangements to support the schools if they say yes. The schools themselves have less time to prepare, which means that recruiting staff, be that teaching or non-teaching support staff, becomes hugely complicated. The autonomy piece plays a role in that. Ultimately, schools have to agree. They have to give us permission to set up the specialist provisions. In previous years, some of that decision-making within particular schools has been slow and has dragged on late in the year. We might have started out with the view that school x seemed keen, and the principal seemed keen, but the principal then had to take it to the board of governors. There are a number of dynamics there.

The Chairperson (Mr Mathison): Just to pick up on that, you have mentioned the concerns about support. Schools are concerned that they will not be supported or resourced, or both, to deliver the provision if they say yes. You are going out to schools now. I absolutely take it as a good-faith assurance that you are actively doing that. What package are you offering to schools? If you are sitting with a principal, what are you telling them that you will put in place to support them? What is on offer from the EA?

Mr Hanna: At a basic level, the offer includes a £3,000 set-up allowance. It also includes full — total — central budget cover for staffing costs. It starts with the minimum of the cost of one teacher and two classroom assistants, but, if the profile of the pupils in that setting means that we need to add a third classroom assistant, for example, we will cover that. The school gets the full cost of that. Then there are annual local management of schools (LMS) allocations, which can range from £18,000 to £46,000 depending on what there is. For example, if additional accommodation is required, we know that there will be additional running costs for that building — heat, light etc — so an additional allowance is made for that. We will also look at the circumstances of individual schools and may make another type of allowance on the basis of those circumstances.

The Chairperson (Mr Mathison): With that offer and that package that you are going out with — I think that it has been clearly articulated before — there still seems to be a lack of trust that it will be delivered. If you are going out to schools now with that offer, do you know, right now, the schools and locations for which you need those specialist provisions in order to deliver what we need for September 2026? That is the first question.

Mr Hanna: The answer is yes.

The Chairperson (Mr Mathison): You know that?

Mr Hanna: Absolutely.

The Chairperson (Mr Mathison): The second question is when you need to have that nailed down in order to deliver it. When do you need schools to have signed on the dotted line?

Mr Hanna: On the back of Graham's letter, our plan is to set something up with schools. We do not know exactly what that will look like over the next six to eight weeks, but, if we can get the vast majority of schools in a position to say, "Right, we are ready to go" by the Halloween break, that will give us an absolutely brilliant starting point for September 2026.

The Chairperson (Mr Mathison): If schools work with you in that time, do you have capacity in the EA to get to that point?

Mr Hanna: I will come back to that. The bit about resource is interesting. When schools say that they do not have resource, I think that they are really saying that they cannot access teachers and classroom assistants in time. Some of that comes back to the fact that they agreed late in the year. Obviously, schools have delegated responsibility for employing teachers and school-based staff. That is their responsibility. If we can get to a position where there is more certainty that school x is going to do it for the next year, it can go about the business of recruiting on a more timely basis, or the EA can find a way to support schools. We have already done that and set out a Northern Ireland supply teacher register type of approach for classroom assistants.

If we know the scale of it early on, we can reorganise ourselves and the resource that we have to do the more meaningful work that is needed to support the schools. Do we need more resource? I do not know the answer to that. We may need more, but I am keen to utilise the resource that I have now in the best way possible. I would rather do that and be in a position where everything that we do is not nugatory and is impactful, makes a difference and supports schools. If we could get schools in a position where they are comfortable with moving forward with specialist provision next year, we would reorganise ourselves. We have a programme of work, and a huge amount of that is spent on engaging with schools to get them to agree. We can reallocate that resource to go about supporting schools in a different way.

The Chairperson (Mr Mathison): That is some of the clearest articulation that I have heard in this forum of what is going to happen, and I take encouragement from that. We obviously need to keep a close eye on it.

I just want to ask one other question; I do not want to eat up all the time with my questions. On the risks to all that, one of the things that I picked up from your report was around your staffing complement for SEN link officers. Since 2021, there have been almost 20 rounds of recruitment for those roles, and we have been aware of periods when there have been significant gaps. When I talked about staff pressure over the summer, that cohort of your staff were under immense pressure. Is that a stable workforce that you have? Are you having issues with retention? If you do not have the link officers, you cannot place children. They are absolutely critical in that process. What does that workforce look like? Do you have what you need? Are there risks around retention?

Mr Hanna: It is a relatively stable workforce. It is hugely committed, and it genuinely cares about the children, young people and parents that it works with. However, there is a risk around retention, because those staff burn out. The reality is that they have to deal with some really difficult conversations with parents who are quite rightly —.

The Chairperson (Mr Mathison): They are the lightning rods for the frustration of parents.

Mr Hanna: They are really anxious around what they do. My simple view is that if we have schools right now that have agreed, we are giving certainty that those places are already in the system. We will have other teams physically creating the spaces, but the point is that, when the SEN link officers start to have conversations with parents and talk about options, the fact that we know that school x will be coming online means that they can have conversations with those parents. Those parents can make informed decisions on a timely basis about the school that they may well like to go to. They can go and visit that school. That, in itself, takes pressure off that workforce. Getting more certainty about the number of schools that are in a position to offer specialist provisions early would take a huge amount of pressure off that workforce and make that a much less contentious, highly pressurised aspect of what they are delivering. It is not that the staff would not be busy, but it would have a hugely positive impact on that particular group of staff who work really hard.

The Chairperson (Mr Mathison): Being busy is fine, but "being pushed to breaking point" is some of the language that I have heard in the EA, and I do not think that it is hyperbole; I think that it has been the case for a lot of those staff.

Last question, then. What is the vacancy rate for SEN link officers at the moment? What is the sickness rate like currently? It is a cohort of staff that needs to be operational.

Mr Hanna: I do not have that particular figure.

Mr Peter Canavan (Education Authority): There are vacancies, and there has been substantial sickness over the summer period.

Mr Hanna: Internally, it is one of those posts where other staff look at it and say, "Why would I apply for that job?"

The Chairperson (Mr Mathison): Do you have a plan to fill those vacancies?

Mr Hanna: Absolutely. We probably have a short window to try to achieve a really strong, positive outcome for schools. If we can get that, it will be a real boost to that workforce, and they will want to be in supporting children and young people, because they are absolutely child-centred individuals. They really are.

Mr Sheehan: Thanks, Dale. After your last appearance at the Committee, you became a bit of a TikTok sensation. [Laughter.]

I am going to focus on the question that I was asking you at that time. At that time, you told us that no grammar schools had a specialist provision class. Has that changed at all?

Mr Hanna: I was incorrect in saying that. Two grammar schools have existing specialist provision classes. At that time, there were no new grammar schools.

Mr Sheehan: There were two then. Are there still two now?

Mr Hanna: Yes, there are still two.

Mr Sheehan: So there has been no improvement?

Mr Hanna: Well, as I have articulated previously — hopefully this will not be a TikTok repeat. [Laughter.]

Mr Martin: You know about TikTok, Dale? That is —.

Mr Hanna: I did not know about TikTok.

Mr Sheehan: He did not know about it until the next morning.

Mr Hanna: Deputy Chair, my focus is on where the main pressures are, and we know that the main pressures for placements are in nursery and primary-school settings. However, in two to three years' time, that spike will move into the post-primary sector. When we say that we know where all the schools are against where the need is, that is all schools across all sectors. We will expect engagement across every school sector, including grammar schools. Above and beyond that, we have arrangements in place to meet the governing association of the voluntary grammar schools. We spoke about that in another forum; they are willing to step up to the plate and take on the responsibility for specialist —.

Mr Sheehan: Fair enough. We will keep an eye on that.

I want to move on to the primary-school sector. As you said, that is where most of the spaces are needed. Thus far, only 26% of schools have set up specialist provision, and the vast majority of those in the primary-school sector that have done so are in disadvantaged and deprived areas — the schools that already carry the largest burden of children with free school meals, newcomer children and so on. Why is that the case? Why is it that those who already do the heavy lifting now have to do more? Why is the burden not spread out more between others, particularly those in more affluent areas?

Mr Hanna: Over the past year, EA has been making the case that more schools need to take on the responsibility of setting up specialist provision. I am not going to disagree with you that a lot of schools carry a huge responsibility in all the social needs out there, particularly when it comes to different societal issues. I agree that more schools need to take on specialist provision.

Mr Sheehan: Do you have an explanation for why schools, particularly those in more affluent areas, are not doing that? Why is it the schools in disadvantaged areas that have to do the heavy lifting?

Mr Hanna: It is not necessarily black and white between disadvantaged areas and those that might not be considered to be disadvantaged.

Mr Sheehan: That appears to be the case from the statistics — the data.

Mr Hanna: Some of the profile of children with special additional needs is in those geographic areas as well as the disadvantaged areas.

Mr Sheehan: I mentioned the case of a school in Andersonstown to you, Dale, where one of the pupils who attends the specialist provision in mainstream schools (SPiMS) is taxied in from Downpatrick. Surely that is not the best case scenario.

Mr Hanna: When we spoke about that, I absolutely agreed with you: that is not ideal, and we do not want that to be the case. That is why we continually make the case that more schools need to be able to set up specialist provision so that, whatever geographical area they are from and whatever their background, children can go to their local school with their local peers. That is EA's position. That is the outcome that we want to achieve. If schools were to agree to setting up specialist provision, we could rectify some of the concerns that you have raised.

Mr Sheehan: Fair enough.

The Chairperson (Mr Mathison): This is your final question, Deputy Chair.

Mr Sheehan: I have two short questions.

The Chairperson (Mr Mathison): And two short answers, please, Dale.

Mr Sheehan: First, has the name of the local impact teams (LITs) changed again? Secondly, the Autism Reviewer was in prior to your coming in, and she said that she knows of hundreds of children who are not at school. What do you say to that?

Mr Hanna: The local impact team name has not changed. We can confirm that.

Mr Sheehan: That is fair enough.

The Chairperson (Mr Mathison): Can we have a short answer on the second one?

Mr Hanna: On the hundreds of children, we need to be clear. We have met Ema and are going to engage further with her about that. Those are children where there is a perception that they are potentially experiencing informal exclusion or they are not at school on a regular basis. That is not data that EA currently holds centrally. It is held at school level. There is currently no way for us to extract that data to determine whether that is a real issue. We will need to explore that in more detail. Alongside that, there is obviously school avoidance, school anxiety — lots of reasons why children do not attend school. When it comes to that informal piece, the issue seems to be that children are not attending for whatever reason, but that data is not being collected. The EA and the Department have no way of collecting that data at the moment. We will have to explore that issue further before we can give you a definitive position on that.

The Chairperson (Mr Mathison): The lack of data on attendance is an issue across the system, not just in relation to special educational needs. It is possibly something to pick up on at another time.

Mr Baker: Thank you. Trust is going to be really important as we go forward, because, to be honest, Dale, I saw no improvement in children with SEN being placed at the same time as their peers, placements in general and transport arrangements this year compared with last year, and now the reduced timetables are starting to come my way as well. It has continued on from the year before. It really does not help when, a week out from the school year finishing, hundreds of children have not even been communicated to. To be honest, however, I thank your staff. The SEN link officers were working quite late, as were those arranging transport. They were responding to me at 9.30 pm or 10.30 pm. I was not asking them to respond to me at that time, but that shows how much pressure they were under and how they wanted to get there. The Minister was on a transatlantic trip, and the chief executive of the EA was at Wimbledon. For parents, that perception is not good enough. The trust is just not there. They do not believe anything that is said any more. We need to work on that, and that comes down to communication. The communication piece is so important. We need to get it right, because it is not happening. We are acting as a go-between. We hear the stories, and we are trying to get information as well, but we are probably making it harder on the SEN link officers, because they then have to respond to us as well. We need to come away from that piece, and a lot of work needs to go into it.

I welcome the open letter and the support. I am really sorry that I am doing a preamble here. I am glad at what I have heard from you so far today. However, my interpretation of what the Minister said yesterday was that he is not going to engage in anything until his plan is agreed in principle. That worries me. He also said that schools are going to close, but there was no real detail, so I am going to ask you. Do you have any communication that schools are on the verge of being closed or children will not be placed? Are those conversations happening? If so, where is it? Is it in Belfast or across the North? What is it?

Mr Hanna: There are a couple of points there. On your original point about communication and how things are not any better, I have been here twice over the past four or five months, and I was very clear that we thought that it was going to be a difficult position. We said that there would be children who, while technically placed, would be in contingency arrangements because of delays — not delays, but construction etc. I hope that the message came through here that we —.

Mr Baker: To be fair, I do not mean communication with us. You have always come in. I mean communication with parents, because I do not know of any cases — particularly not 80 to 100 cases — in which mainstream children are placed in a setting that is not ready, are not placed at all or are not placed at the same time as their peers. That is the communication that I mean. The transport also just was not there for parents again this year.

Mr Hanna: Again, it comes back to the fact that we are in a perpetual cycle every year where children get placed at the last minute. The transport teams get information at the last minute to try and put in place arrangements for the children. They try to do that as quickly as possible. However, you find that the taxi arrives in good faith to take the child to school, but, because the child has special needs, you would have wanted to have had a better lead-in time to allow the taxi driver to get to know the child or reach out to the parent. It all comes back to this cycle. Every year, at the last minute, we struggle to get these placements up and running and get the capacity in place. SEN link officers cannot place the children. If they cannot place the children, the transport teams cannot plan because they do not know whether Dale is going to school x or school y. It is all down to that cycle.

Mr Baker: You believe that you can break that cycle next year?

Mr Hanna: I absolutely believe that, yes.

Mr Baker: That is really important. That is a more positive message than we heard yesterday, to be honest.

Dr Adell: In addition, communication will always be easier with the new data systems, where parents can see in real time what is happening with the case. That frees up time for link officers to respond easily. As of lunchtime today, the link officers had 98 pieces of correspondence from MLAs sitting unanswered. Almost all of them were, "What is happening with my case?" If that is something that a parent can see in real time on a system, it makes it easier. I do not say that it is the only solution —

Mr Baker: We already get that.

Dr Adell: — but it is one of many small things that are happening that, together, can make a big difference. If we also are quicker with the placements, the cumulative effect of all those things makes it much easier to communicate well with parents. Of course, there are trust issues, and we cannot fix trust issues overnight. Just because we say it, it does not mean that trust is fixed. We know that. However, we are in a place this year that looks different. If you come back on the same issue in 12 months' time, I will be quite disappointed, because we really should be in a different place.

Mr Hanna: Can I just address the bit about school closures?

The Chairperson (Mr Mathison): Very quick final point, Dale.

Mr Hanna: That is important, because I do not want it to be alarmist in a sense. I admit that I did not hear the Minister yesterday. I understand that he was making an announcement to say that we have a plan. The criticism in the past was that we did not have a plan for the special school estate. We know that we are over capacity in the special school estate. We need more special schools. We need those buildings and that capital investment.

Mr Baker: We know, but that does not put us in danger of schools closing.

Mr Hanna: However, I think — I am happy to be corrected — that what the Minister was alluding to, given that part of his statement was around the general pressure on the school estate, was that capital investment is being squeezed. All the money right now is being spent on SEN. However, on the flip side of that, we know that our school estate is crumbling. We have a huge backlog. If we do not have enough capital to maintain our mainstream schools, we potentially run the risk that, in certain situations, schools or parts of schools will close because we have not maintained them. If, for example, the heating system fails, Danny, and I cannot afford to replace it, it is not a safe environment for those children to go into. That might be what the Minister was saying.

Mr Baker: A heating system will get fixed.

Mr Hanna: Pardon?

Mr Baker: A heating system will get fixed.

Mr Hanna: We have a finite budget, and it may not get fixed.

The Chairperson (Mr Mathison): I thought that it was important to get an answer to that question. It has gone over time and I will not necessarily do that in every case, but there has been some parental concern around that statement that schools would be closing.

Mrs Guy: Thank you, folks. I would like to move on and talk a wee bit more about the SEN LITs and understand what particular specialisms you need or have demand for in your teams right now.

Dr Adell: The LITs consist of eight teams joining up as one. Sorry, I have to look to make sure. I know the acronyms but, being new, I get things wrong. They are: language and communication; learning difficulties; Down's syndrome service; literacy service; autism advice and information service; behaviour and support information service; post-primary behaviour and support; and early years intervention service.

Mrs Guy: Yes.

Dr Adell: Those are coming together into one local impact team to deliver a single service for children with a single point of contact. Instead of having eight different services in silos, with different referral and admin systems, you have one place to go for the child's needs, and the child then gets referred.

Mrs Guy: The child will be referred to the right specialist.

Dr Adell: Yes.

Mrs Guy: Have you staff to meet the demand within those specialisms right now?

Dr Adell: The impact teams are a combination of the existing staff. There are no new staff. There is a demand/capacity gap. We obviously want to expand and do more, but there is no reduction in staff. This should lead to improved efficiency, because there is better provision for children. However, it is not a secret that we need more intervention early on to get better outcomes for children.

Mrs Guy: We need additional resource in there to meet the demand. Do you know what that looks like, or what the scale of that is?

Mr Hanna: Yes. We have had to reorganise the teams geographically. There are some geographical hotspots because particular officers might not be involved, and so there is a gap there. More generally, because there has been a general increase in the number of children with SEN requirements, additional resource is required.

As I recall, it would cost somewhere in the region of £2 million to staff that additionality.

Mrs Guy: OK. How many staff are you trying to hire?

Mr Hanna: I cannot do the maths backwards. [Laughter.]

Mrs Guy: I just thought that you might know how many people you need in position to meet the demand.

We talk about SEN transformation a lot. That strays into a lot of different areas. You have the transformation work in the EA, but we know that there are transformation projects in DE around the specific ring-fenced transformation fund. I would like to get an understanding of what is happening in both those spaces. Do they overlap each other? It feels as though there is a real acute pressure now in the EA to deliver on the ground. Is money being spent on transformation projects in DE that does not contribute right now to the pressures that you are feeling?

Dr Adell: I would not say so. The transformation work across DE and EA is one piece of work.

Mrs Guy: It is complementary.

Dr Adell: Yes, it is not different pieces of work. There are a number of different projects that look at different things. Some are led by DE, and some are led by us. That does not mean that they are contradictory or competing. A number of projects are testing things and looking at how —

Mrs Guy: What are those projects?

Dr Adell: I could give you a list. There are 13 projects through the transformation funding specifically that are managed through DE. It would probably be easier to provide that in writing than go through everything in here, but, for example, local impact teams is one of the main projects. That is a cornerstone. There is work around a support model for specialist schools and specialist school support hubs for mainstream schools. They are not competing; they are supporting.

Mrs Guy: I am not suggesting that they are; I am just trying to understand.

Dr Adell: Some of those things are small projects involving a couple of hundred thousand pounds. The local impact teams is a major project that involves 500 staff. There is a wide range of projects. We can set out the detail in writing, because the proper answer would take us a bit of time to go through. I assure you that it is not competing. We need to know how things work. Some of the things will work, and some will not. Therefore, it is right to try a number of different things, and, if they do not work, we need to be brave and say, "Actually, that's not the top priority". However, it is really hard to know what will work in our area straight away.

Mrs Guy: It is fair to ask whether it is right to put time and resource now into pilots and looking at things that might work when there are immediate pressures. We know that, to fix those, we need to put people into LITs and get specialists in. The unions brought this up last week as well: there are immediate things that, if we could focus on them, would make a huge impact on the outcomes for the kids. I accept absolutely that testing things and making sure that they work is valuable, but is it the right priority right now, considering the pressure on the ground?

Dr Adell: That is a very good question. When you firefight a house fire, you want to stop the fire, but if you only firefight and do not also look at how to build the house to be fireproof in the first place, we will never put out the fire.

Mrs Guy: It is already on fire.

Dr Adell: That is the problem: we need to do both. Most of the projects are quite small. If you took that funding away, it would not make a huge impact on the rest of the work because, individually, they are quite small projects. However, if they work, they can help us with models for how to fix the system properly in the long term.

The Chairperson (Mr Mathison): I have to draw a line at that point, given the time. One of the challenges in this space is that we are not clear on how much all the elements of the SEN delivery agenda actually cost; we just have one headline figure. That would really help the Committee to understand the priorities, but that probably sits with the Department more than with the EA.

Mr Burrows: I thank all your staff for the hard work that they have done.

Mr Hanna: Thank you.

Mr Burrows: I have heard that they have been working night and day, particularly towards the end of school, so I genuinely appreciate it.

I have a couple of questions. I do not know whether you heard Ema Cubitt's testimony.

Mr Hanna: No.

Mr Burrows: She confirmed that protecting inspection from industrial action is critical to safeguarding children with SEN from bullying and making sure that their safeguarding is high. That is really important to get that on the public record.

I asked Ema whether there was an acceptable language guide on SEN for parents, teachers or us. She said that some of the language that we use in the Assembly is outdated. Is there a guide? She said that, if there is not, she is going to develop one. Are you aware of a guide?

Mr Hanna: I am not aware of a guide. We know that some of that moves and changes. Clearly, we need to be sensitive in how we articulate some of that. I do not believe that EA holds a guide specifically.

Mr Burrows: Do you think that that would be useful?

Mr Hanna: Yes, it absolutely would be helpful.

Mr Burrows: I ask these questions because sometimes I might even be a bit racist. There were phrases that we used in the old days that you would not use now — coloured, black — so language is important. That is the second thing.

Dr Adell: It would be really helpful if an external person such as Ema, the Autism Reviewer, were to develop that guidance rather than the authority.

The Chairperson (Mr Mathison): She has suggested that it is something that she would like to do.

Dr Adell: That would be really helpful. We would welcome that.

Mr Burrows: Excellent. I have two other key points. The safety of children is paramount. I have just had a response to a question that I asked of the Education Minister, which was that the longest round trip to a school was 106 miles. You would agree that that is not acceptable.

Mr Hanna: Absolutely.

Mr Burrows: The journey takes two hours and 40 minutes, which is clearly unacceptable. Sorry, that was a leading question: you would accept that it is unacceptable.

Mr Hanna: Yes.

Mr Burrows: That is not a criticism. I am just getting that on the record.

Apart from addressing that, I have one issue that I am interested in, which is that a lot of children go to school by taxi.

Mr Hanna: Yes.

Mr Burrows: What system of vetting is in place, in addition to what the Department has in place, for ensuring that taxi drivers are safe to have unsupervised access to children? Are there additional checks?

Mr Hanna: Yes, is the simple answer. In fact, within the education sector, taxis are probably the most scrutinised on access checks. For example, every year, there is a child protection policy. I cannot remember the number, but it states that private contractor taxi drivers are subject to AccessNI checks every year, unlike, for example, a teacher, who is subject to only one check at the start of their career. So, yes, there are increased checks. In addition, as part of their licensing arrangements to become a taxi driver through the Department for Infrastructure, there is a check at that point.

Mr Burrows: I am coming to that because I think that we have a massive flaw that nobody has gripped in Northern Ireland. Brian Stalford was convicted 18 months ago. He had 66 previous convictions, and there are taxi drivers all over Northern Ireland who have multiple convictions — firearms offences, terrorism offences, burglary, domestic violence. There needs to be a specific check, because AccessNI is waving those through. Brian Stalford had 66 previous convictions. He was deemed by the Department for Infrastructure to be a safe person to have unsupervised access to people. Is it the case that we could have people in Northern Ireland who are taxi drivers with multiple convictions like Brian Stalford who have been taking our children to school? Would anything have stopped Brian Stalford from being someone who could have taken children to school on an unsupervised three-hour journey?

Mr Hanna: I will answer that in two ways. Maybe, because I am conscious of Committee time, this is something that we could pick up again. There is lots of detail in that question.

I want to give you assurance. When it comes to our own AccessNI clearance, we get full AccessNI. We have our own procedure and protocol around previous convictions. We look at the recency and nature of the conviction. There are criteria that the EA apply to determine whether a person is a suitable person to transport a child. For example, one could have had a conviction 30 years ago and have had a completely clear record ever since. Therefore, we look at recency and the nature of the offence. If somebody had something extreme, such as involving class A drugs or some of the more serious offences, clearly, they are not going to be approved to be a taxi driver. There is a process in place to be approved to be a taxi driver.

Mr Burrows: different things to be approved to be a taxi driver through Infrastructure or yourselves —

The Chairperson (Mr Mathison): Jon, we are very short on time. A final couple of points on this. We will have the opportunity for a full evidence session on transport, but we are just running over on time.

Mr Burrows: This is not the Education Authority, by the way. It is the systemic, underlying issue that so many people who have very serious convictions are deemed by the Department for Infrastructure to be a fit and reasonable person to have unsupervised access to vulnerable people. I am specifically asking whether there is a safety valve in that with regard to children with special educational needs. That is what I am trying to get to. We have a real risk unless there are very robust checks. I would be interested to know how many taxi drivers who apply get turned down.

Mr Hanna: It is an important issue for members of the public who might be watching this. I do not want to be alarmist about the people who are operating taxis in Northern Ireland. There absolutely are taxi drivers who are turned down every year. Safeguarding is hugely important, and I do not want to play it down. Equally, I need to make the case that many of our taxi drivers are really good individuals —

Mr Burrows: One hundred per cent.

Mr Hanna: — who really care about the children, so I want to provide that balance. I think that it is probably something that needs to be discussed in more detail rather than in a quick five-minute question and answer.

The Chairperson (Mr Mathison): Can we pick it up if there is written correspondence that you want the Committee to look to? Or we can pick it up at a further evidence session. I am happy for a final comment, and then we will move on because I have given you substantially over your time.

Mr Burrows: I rely on taxis myself because I like a pint of Guinness. They have a vital role; they are public servants, in many ways. It is not a dig at 99% of taxi drivers.

Mr Hanna: I want to provide assurance to parents that this is not a widespread issue that they should be unduly concerned about.

Mr Burrows: I am concerned because Brian Stalford will have driven vulnerable females around, and there are dozens of Brian Stalfords.

The Chairperson (Mr Mathison): We can pick that up in our actions at the end of the session.

Mr Martin: I am not sure whether you want to start with easy or hard. Let us start with easy. Do you agree with Ema, the Autism Reviewer who was just here, and the Education Minister that there is an opportune window between now and the year end to set a strategic direction for SEN reform?

Dr Adell: Yes.

Mr Martin: What do you see as any key hurdles to that strategic direction being operational?

Dr Adell: It is twofold. First is where there is a lack of trust. If you do not have trust and buy-in from parents and schools, it is impossible to change. We must show that the change is better for children, and it is not about anything other than getting better outcomes for children with special educational needs. The second aspect is the funding that is available. Demand has increased hugely, and that is putting pressure on everyone's budgets. It is difficult to reform and provide better outcomes in a very difficult financial climate.

Mr Hanna: Can I add one thing to that?

Mr Martin: As long as it is quick, Dale. I only have three minutes now. I am only joking. Keep going.

Mr Hanna: The other thing is that that trust needs also to extend to the support from you as politicians and for you to trust us, as the practitioners, to know exactly what is needed to transform. The local impact teams have been a great example of where, consistently over the past 24 months when I have been involved in that, we have been challenged on whether this is the right thing to do. On the one hand, we have been asked to transform, and, on the other hand, we and the teams have worked really hard to base it on evidence. There is also something about trusting the EA and the people who are expert in those fields to know what it is that they are doing to transform the system.

Mr Martin: On the funding, just a tiny answer, please. Is it capital, is it resource or is it both, Tomas?

Dr Adell: The reform of SEN is mostly resource.

Mr Martin: Dale, I am going to pick up on the local impact teams, as they are still called. The unions were here, and they said that there were some teething problems. That is how they characterised it. From the conversations that I have had with EA staff about how that is working, my assessment is that there are a few teething problems. Do you agree with that assessment and is it your view that you will get those ironed out? I do not want to go into the details of them all, but will you accept that there are some teething problems? If so, are you in a position to resolve those?

Dr Adell: Absolutely. It is a major reform in how we deliver services. It would be remarkable if there were not teething problems. No one would believe me if I were to say that there were no teething problems, because there will absolutely be. Five hundred staff are being completely reorganised in how they will deliver a service. That will cause challenges. We are addressing those challenges as they come up daily. There are meetings with the senior teams every week about that, and they are progressing.

Mr Martin: This is my final question. I am doing well. It is back to link officers. I am not sure who raised it first, but I wanted to come back to it. For my information, what salary band — a ballpark figure — is a link officer in?

Mr Hanna: It is probably £35,000 a year.

Mr Martin: That was my understanding of it. That is what I was going to guess, Dale. I think that it was Danny who raised it. They really are crucial, and I have dealt with them as an MLA. You can see how they are under extraordinary pressure. They are having really difficult conversations. They are definitely susceptible to sickness, burnout and a whole range of things. My question is about how we go forward, given that the individuals are core to what is happening at the moment. Has the EA thought about how they can be better supported? If the EA is struggling to get staff, is there a salary banding question? When they are there, has the EA considered how it might support and help those individuals, given the nature of the job?

Mr Hanna: There are two parts to that. I am not sure —

The Chairperson (Mr Mathison): Can we have a quick response, Dale, to this question?

Mr Hanna: Yes. First, the key is to go back to the core question. If we can address the issue of capacity in the system and get schools to agree and step up to the plate, the fundamental outworking is that the job becomes more manageable. If we can resolve that piece and get over that hump, the link officer's job becomes very different.

Mr Martin: The job changes if the solution is in place, and it is opened up a little.

Mr Hanna: Absolutely.

Dr Adell: It is important for the transformation of SEN to make the link officer job better and easier inside the EA. We are looking at the data at the minute.

Mr Martin: I think—.

Dr Adell: Digitisation is a good step.

Mr Martin: Sorry for cutting across you, Tomas.

Dr Adell: No. It is OK.

Mr Martin: I was about to agree with you. It is key and important, and it is good that you both recognise that. Some of the solution will be driven by the environmental changes, but it is the job itself. Sorry, Chair.

Mr Brooks: I want to build on a point from one of Peter's questions. The answer was that the reform of SEN is mostly focused on resources, and that is where there are requirements. The Minister made the point in the Chamber about the capital requirements and the investment that is needed to meet the needs. Dale made a point about boilers and the false economy of continuing to invest in old schools, which is not the best way forward. I am not trying to make a political point, but there is some political pushback from Sinn Féin that the Minister should be more careful with his budget, and if he moved things around a bit, he could solve the problems within his existing budget. Sometimes it is not just the slice of the pie; it is that the pie is not big enough, and I understand that. It is not too political a point. Can we be absolutely clear that we cannot achieve our outcome aspirations for our SEN children without additional Executive investment outside the current funding model? The schools estate needs capital investment.

Mr Hanna: I will take the estate piece. We have been clear about the additional special school places that are required. Over the past three or four years, everybody has agreed to it. I assumed that everyone agreed and accepted that we needed more spaces.

Mr Brooks: Childcare.

Mr Hanna: Likewise, alongside that, we have a huge backlog across all schools, and our schools are in all our communities. I am responsible for that piece in my new role as chief operating officer. We are under pressure with the maintenance budget for improving the school estate. We absolutely need capital investment in both areas.

Mr Brooks: It cannot be done with the current budgetary arrangements.

Mr Hanna: It cannot be done. We can do little things very slowly, but if people want some of the issues to be resolved quickly, we need to find a way to invest.

Mr Brooks: So—. Sorry, go ahead.

Dr Adell: Maybe I answered the question too quickly in the interests of time. SEN transformation is about people, but that has to be delivered in a school setting that is up to date.

Mr Brooks: Fit-for-purpose.

Dr Adell: Yes. They go hand-in-hand even though they are slightly different areas.

Mr Brooks: Essentially, we all deal with SEN issues in our offices daily, particularly through the summer, but if the Executive want to see the issues resolved and moving more smoothly in the future, they must not just talk about SEN as being a priority but put their money where their mouth is.

The Chairperson (Mr Mathison): Thank you, David. I am not used to you getting in well under time. You caught me off guard.

Mrs Mason: Thanks for your evidence. Tomas used a strapline about the lack of trust. Very often, when children move from P3 to P4, they stay in school for an extra hour, until 3.00 pm. I am aware of a principal and special educational needs coordinator (SENCO) who have a number of children in class who require one-to-one assistance at all times. It says that in their statement. They are begging the EA to give them that one extra hour of classroom assistant time for those children. Another principal is battling with the EA to get a very small set of steps replaced by a disability ramp. Other principals have heard departmental officials sit in the same seats that you guys are sitting in and say that the removal of the educational psychologist has helped and relieved the workload of our SENCOs in our schools. How on earth do you expect schools to trust the EA in what it says about them getting support to set up SPiMS?

Mr Hanna: There are three areas there. On the one-to-one assistance, obviously, schools have the right to come forward as part of the annual review and seek to increase those hours. Our teams will look at that and make a judgement about whether that additionality is required. In many, many cases, the additionality may be approved, but in other situations, they may look at the needs of the child and determine that it may not be needed. It is one of those things: if you want to give us the individual detail, you can do that. We have talked about the classroom assistant model. There have been many reports on SEN that have said that the classroom assistant model is not necessarily the most effective, hence the need to move to a new type of model.

Mrs Mason: Sorry to cut across you, but I am not looking for specifics in each of those instances. I am trying to give you a feel for the principals who are, perhaps, thinking about taking on those specialist provisions. How can they trust? How can you give them the assurance that they are going to get the support that they need when they are fighting battles in all those areas?

Mr Hanna: I can only answer that by saying that, in a sense, you have brought together and aggregated issues from across a number of schools and asked how principals can trust the EA. Of course, the EA still has to do its business and make sure that there is a level of rigour around its expenditure and whether there is going to be additionality.

We have invested a huge amount of money in supporting SPiMS. None of that money comes out of a school's budget. All of it is being carried centrally by the Education Authority. We have invested in specialist support teams to support the schools to set up specialist provisions. Do we get it wrong sometimes? We have said and openly acknowledged — I have to say it — that, yes, I am sure that we have got it wrong sometimes, and we will continue to get it wrong sometimes in the future. However, because we get it wrong sometimes does not mean that everybody else, including our school leaders, can say that that gives them the opportunity to veto putting in a specialist provision.

I reiterate this: we are up for the challenge. We will meet and engage with principals. If more support is required, we will look to see how we can provide that. We will step up to that challenge. Of course, that will require additional resource. If additional resource can be provided, we are happy to pass it on to schools to support them. This is not about trying to be "them and us" with schools. However, there may be occasions when the EA disagrees with a school principal's assessment of a child, and those will continue throughout this process and exercise of trying to get to the point at which we stabilise capacity.

Mrs Mason: OK. Thank you.

The Chairperson (Mr Mathison): That brings us to the end of the session. I want to ask one final question before you go. Everyone seems to be approaching this with an attitude of "Let's learn from what's gone on before. Let's have a reset". That is welcome. We can look back at the previous year. You have set out a timeline of what you need this year. If you are not at the point that you need to be by Halloween, and the crisis picture emerges again, will that be the point at which you will need to put up a red flag to the Department and say "We need some other intervention"? Right now, everybody seems to be on the same page and heading in the same direction. If we are not there at Halloween, and you are saying that that is the critical juncture, what is the intervention at that stage? I am just asking for a very brief answer, but I think that the Committee needs a sense, for tracking it, on when we need to be looking to hear back on this.

Mr Hanna: I think that it is reasonable to say that we need to call it much earlier in the year. Certainly, before Christmas, if we do not see a huge difference in the number of schools that have been able to say yes, then we can probably be confident in saying that it is likely, based on the previous years, that we will have a similar outcome in September. We will not shy away from calling that out as early as possible.

The Chairperson (Mr Mathison): Let us hope that that is not where we land. It is important to get that timescale because, last year, there was just a sense that it all took too long. Again, we were in June before we really had any substantive intervention from the Minister, and that is just too late. An early red flag is needed, and keeping the Committee sighted on that as well. Thank you very much for your time and comprehensive evidence.

Mr Hanna: Thank you.