Official Report: Minutes of Evidence

The Deputy Chairperson (Mr Sheehan): I welcome to the Committee Ronnie Armour, Janis Scallon and Deirdre Ward. Thank you for coming. You have up to 10 minutes to give a presentation, Ronnie, and then Committee members will ask questions. Thank you.

Mr Ronnie Armour (Department of Education): Thank you, Chair. Good afternoon. I thank the Committee for the opportunity to provide an update on the work of the Department on progressing the seven recommendations in the Public Accounts Committee (PAC) report of 2021. Before I do that, I welcome the review that the Committee is undertaking of special educational needs (SEN) and assure members that the Department is ready to support it in any way that it can. A number of my colleagues will attend Committee meetings in the coming weeks to give you detailed briefings on different aspects.

I will turn to the PAC's recommendations. My intention is simply to provide a broad overview of progress to date and to answer any questions that the Committee may have. I will do so briefly.

Recommendation 1, which focuses on the need for an independent review of the Education Authority (EA), was addressed through the landscape review that reported in 2022-23.

Recommendation 2, which focuses on the need for an external review of SEN services, is, perhaps, the most significant in relation to the Committee's work. The delivery of that recommendation remains ongoing. The 2023 Ipsos review was the Department's response to that recommendation, and the jointly led end-to-end review of SEN flowed from that. That review concluded at the end of 2024 and led to the publication of the Minister's SEN reform agenda and five-year delivery plan, which was published in February. Since then, most of the enabling actions outlined in the reform agenda have been delivered, including the SEN policy statement, an outcomes framework, the establishment of a delivery unit and agreement on the governance structures to oversee delivery. The developments over the past six months chart a clear strategic direction taken by the Minister, his key priorities and the early actions that we are taking. We are happy to explore those areas with the Committee today and in subsequent weeks.

Recommendation 3 focuses on the need for rigorous performance monitoring. That recommendation has been implemented, with performance data collated by the EA and considered carefully by DE and the EA board.

Recommendation 4 focuses on the important area of oversight by the EA board. As regards the implementation of that recommendation, the EA board is perhaps best placed to comment on whether it is satisfied with the oversight that it has now, but I certainly have no reasons to think that it is not.

Recommendation 5 deals with the absence of reliable information and data in the EA. That recommendation is on track for achievement. As part of the move to the new local impact team (LIT) model, there is now a single management information system that spans all pupil support services. The data that is available from the new reporting mechanism on the local impact teams will feed into the EA's corporate performance framework. Digitisation of the statutory assessment process will also improve data quality and availability.

Recommendation 6 calls for a review of the effectiveness of the funding allocated to all stages of the SEN process. The Ipsos review considered that issue and reported that the SEN system needed to be realigned and reformed in order to move from being a process-driven system to a child-centred approach that meets the needs of children with SEN, improving their educational outcomes, with an approach in which funding is used effectively and that demonstrates value for money. That resulted in the Ipsos review's first recommendation, which was for DE to develop an action plan for transformational change. We have now done that.

Recommendation 7 focuses on the EA's decision-making and appeals. While I suspect that the Committee will wish to explore the issue further with the EA, I will say that it has strengthened its decision-making process and is reporting to DE and the EA board on tribunals and appeals data, among other things.

I assure the Committee that progress on the delivery of the recommendations is monitored by the Department of Education's internal audit team and is reported quarterly to the audit and risk committee. Given the progress that has been made to date, I hope that the Committee can see the clear commitment from the Department and the EA to deliver meaningful change across the education system and improve outcomes for our children and young people with SEN.

That said, I acknowledge the ongoing frustrations across the system, not least in the context of delays in securing school placements. The scale of the challenge before us is significant and requires substantial investment and collaboration to ensure that the needs are addressed and our staff are supported. That has been reflected by the Minister in his recent statement to the Assembly. The SEN reform agenda signals the Minister's commitment to ensuring that all our children with SEN receive the right support at the right time by the right people in the right place. We all have an important role to play in delivering the Programme for Government priority that we provide:

We do not underestimate the scale of the challenge that is before us, but nor do we underestimate the scale of the opportunity before us, should we secure the necessary resources. Consequently, I look forward to working with the Committee as it undertakes the review.

The Deputy Chairperson (Mr Sheehan): Thank you, Ronnie. I will kick off. We had successive Audit Office reports in 2017 and 2021 and then the PAC report. We are told that eye-watering sums of money — hundreds of millions of pounds — were being spent on provision for SEN children. Yet neither the Department nor the EA were able to show value for money. Will you tell the Committee what has changed in the intervening period?

Mr Armour: A significant amount has changed. We still spend very significant amounts of money, as the Committee will know, on our SEN budget. We work very closely with EA. The end-to-end review looked at every step through the process, culminating in our delivery plan and action plan. We are working closely with the EA to ensure that we deliver value for money, but we work in a challenging environment, as the Committee knows.

The Deputy Chairperson (Mr Sheehan): Ronnie, can you show evidence that the public is getting value for the money that is being spent on SEN? Neither your Department nor the EA were able to do that previously. That is why I ask whether anything has changed.

Mr Armour: Things have changed, as I say. We are working much more closely together. We can demonstrate —

The Deputy Chairperson (Mr Sheehan): Give me an example of an area where things have changed.

Mr Armour: Things have changed in how closely we work together around placements, which is one of our major challenges.

The Deputy Chairperson (Mr Sheehan): That was another debacle this year.

Mr Armour: I do not accept that it has been another debacle. It has been extremely challenging.

The Deputy Chairperson (Mr Sheehan): What was different between this year and last year?

Mr Armour: When you look at the numbers of children and the way we were able to place all the children by the beginning of September, you see that that is a significant step forward. We have to look at it in the context of the numbers that we deal with. Some 1,300 places had to be found. I pay tribute to the work of the EA and colleagues who worked tirelessly to achieve that. I do not say that it is perfect — we have a long way to go — but there is evidence of close working and examples of how we are addressing a challenging situation.

The Deputy Chairperson (Mr Sheehan): Massive amounts of money are being spent on transport. What improvements have there been with regard to transport that demonstrate value for money?

Mr Armour: Transport is one of those challenging areas. We have to provide the transport that is required. Doing that is challenging. We can all look at individual cases and say, "That could be done differently" or "That could be done better." However, overall, the sooner we can get the children placed, the quicker we can address some of the transport issues.

The Deputy Chairperson (Mr Sheehan): Let me just give you one example of this, Ronnie; it is not by any means an isolated example. I spoke to the principal of a primary school in West Belfast who has a number of specialist provision classes in his school. There is a child who is being taxied back and forth from Downpatrick every day. I am sure that that is costing close to £1,000 a week. How is that value for money?

Mr Armour: It is unacceptable that a child is having to —

The Deputy Chairperson (Mr Sheehan): It is happening all over the place.

Mr Armour: I accept that. That is part of the difficulty that EA faces with the scale of the problem that it is trying to address. I will not sit before the Committee and try to argue that that case demonstrates value for money. It is unacceptable that a child is having to travel that far. I assume that, unfortunately, that has been required due to the necessity of the individual situation and circumstances. I cannot comment on the —

The Deputy Chairperson (Mr Sheehan): Ronnie, if it were an isolated case, I would say, "Look, there must be a problem. It will eventually get sorted out", but it is not isolated. All MLAs hear of similar situations across the North. I will ask you again: can you demonstrate that there is value for money for the vast amounts of money that are being spent on transport?

Mr Armour: I think that we can demonstrate that we are delivering value for money as best we can, but I cannot say that we are delivering value for money in every case.

The Deputy Chairperson (Mr Sheehan): OK. The PAC found that the EA did not even know how many children needed SEN support. Do we know now?

Mrs Janis Scallon (Department of Education): Do you mean the number of children who require support at each stage of the code of practice?

The Deputy Chairperson (Mr Sheehan): Whenever. I am asking about children who need support in the education system. Do we know how many there are?

Mrs Scallon: There are just under 70,000 children on the SEN code of practice.

The Deputy Chairperson (Mr Sheehan): There are 70,000 children who need support. I have asked you this question before, Janis. Many of those children need wrap-around support from speech and language therapists, behavioural therapists, occupational therapists, social workers and so on. How many allied health professionals (AHPs) do we need to provide support for those children? Can you break down what we need into each discipline?

Mrs Scallon: With regard to the workforce, we have been here before. You heard from the Chief Allied Health Professions Officer (CAHPO). It would be remiss of me to speak on behalf of another Department about its provision for children. Health authorities have prime responsibility for the provision of health services, as per the code of practice for special educational needs. However, we know how many children in our schools are presenting with speech, language and communication needs, delayed language disorder and medical needs. We have that breakdown —

The Deputy Chairperson (Mr Sheehan): If you know all —

Mrs Scallon: — however, when it comes to what those children actually need, not all children with speech, language and communication needs need speech therapy.

The Deputy Chairperson (Mr Sheehan): OK. Thanks for that. If you know how many children need speech and language therapy support, you must know how many speech and language therapists you need to provide that support. Is that not common sense, or am I living in a parallel universe?

Mrs Scallon: We know the needs that children are presenting with. We record them on the school systems and on the SEN register. They are recorded under "special educational needs" and/or "medical needs". Some children will appear on both registers. The provision for each child will be different. A child might be recorded as having speech, language and communication needs, but a professional therapist will have to decide what the nature of the intervention is for that child. There are things that teachers can do in the classroom. There are things that classroom assistants can support teachers with in the classroom. For some children, it might be small-group teaching or small-group therapy, but it might be individual therapy, community speech therapy or child development clinic therapy. The child might need therapy and intervention from the Autism Advisory and Intervention Service (AAIS). We know what the needs are among the children, but, when it comes to the provision for each child, it is not for an educationalist to decide what health provision is required. For the almost 30,000 children who have statements, that will be outlined in their statement of special educational needs either under education provision or under non-education provision.

The Deputy Chairperson (Mr Sheehan): For the children who are statemented, do we know how many allied health professionals are needed?

Mrs Scallon: We know what is in their statement, and that data will be held by the Education Authority.

The Deputy Chairperson (Mr Sheehan): I do not ask what is in their statement: I ask whether we know how many allied health professionals are needed to provide that support.

Mrs Scallon: We do not hold that data.

Mr Armour: We do not have that information.

The Deputy Chairperson (Mr Sheehan): OK, Janis. You have mentioned that this is an area for Health. Ronnie, how many meetings have you had with your counterpart in the Health Department on the issue? What was on the agenda in those meetings?

Mr Armour: I have had two discussions with the new permanent secretary of Health since his arrival. We met early on, because I was keen that he would have an understanding of the issue that we are dealing with. We had a second discussion on establishing a joint group between Health and Education to drive forward the change. Health is facing massive resource issues, as are we.

One of the things that we, perhaps, needed to do better and are trying now to do is to be clear with Health on what our ask is. I will shortly submit a paper to my opposite number for further discussion on the needs that we have and what our ask is.

The Deputy Chairperson (Mr Sheehan): OK. Thanks Ronnie.

I open the discussion to members. Michelle, you are in first.

Mrs Guy: Thank you for the evidence presented today. We have seen the PAC report, and now we have the SEN reform agenda. Often, with the evidence and briefings that we get, if we were to accept everything that is on paper, we might think that everything is great and going really well, but we know that that is not the case.

What is really happening at the coalface of this is the LITs, so I will ask about that. How much of the £27·5 million of transformation moneys is being spent on those LITs?

Mr Armour: None of it, as such, is being spent on the LITs at this point.

Mrs Scallon: They are already being funded through the EA block grant.

Mrs Guy: OK. How much is being invested in the LITs from the EA's block grant?

Mr Armour: I do not have the precise figure. Do you, Janis?

Mrs Scallon: All that I can do is look back to 2024-25. In that year, it was the individual pupil support services, and that was around £33 million.

Mrs Guy: I got the impression that the biggest part of that money was going into the LITs, but you say that none of that money goes into them.

Mr Armour: Not at this stage.

Mrs Guy: Expertise is coming into those teams. I met the special education needs coordinator (SENCO) group last week. Those people are amazing, obviously. I have to say that they are very concerned about some of the narratives that are going out from the Department on schools not stepping up. That was said in the context of placements, and it was upsetting because placement is one issue, and schools should not be judged on their contribution to special educational needs according to whether they can offer specialist provision in mainstream schools (SPiMS). Those professionals are there now, dealing with this. They are on the front line of it and are upset to think that that is how their contribution is being dismissed.

It comes down to the experience of those guys. They have a concern that the level of expertise going into the LITs is perhaps not what it ought to be. I have a particular concern, again leading on from the kind of narrative that goes out. On the basis of some of the information that they gave me, what this will come down to at the end is presenting numbers. Ronnie, you have already said that, with the placements, it is all about the numbers.

Mr Armour: I said the challenge was about the numbers.

Mrs Guy: The challenge is about getting kids proper education and appropriately placed.

Mr Armour: Yes, of course.

Mrs Guy: When you just talk about the numbers and who gets placed, you miss that really important bit of it. The concern with this is that we will end up talking about numbers again and not whether the outcomes are what we want them to be.

The example that they used was a child needing support around literacy and eventually getting through the system. The support that they got back was some printouts off the computer. They say, "I could do that myself. I did not need a LIT". The concern is that that kid then comes off the statistics because they had those printouts delivered to them. However, to say that that kid got a proper intervention and is being helped is not right. It would be dubious to say that that is what is happening. They had other examples. They are professionals with 30 years' experience. When a newly qualified teacher gives them advice, they think, "I probably know more than they do". They feel, "Is this really the expertise that we are getting in these LITs?".

Another example was that the SENCO told the LIT their plan of action — they went to get advice and validation — and were told, "We don't think we can give you any better advice than you have. Good luck". That was the level of advice and intervention that they got. Will the LITs add value to the outcomes for the kids, or will we will get to a situation, as with placements, where all we talk about is the numbers?

Mr Armour: I will answer part of that, and then Janis might unpack some of the detail. First, it is important to say that I very much regret that people feel that the Department's narrative was in any way negative. We have nothing but admiration for the staff who work in schools and for the school principals. They are in a difficult position and are doing the best that they can. What we are trying to say is that it is important that we engage with schools on specialist provision and that we get the opportunity to do so as early in the year as possible. I welcome the intervention from Graham Gault. We are now in a much better place, and we can move forward.

I absolutely agree that it is not about numbers but about the children. I use the numbers as a context to show the scale of what we are trying to do. I and my colleagues are in no doubt that every one of those 1,374 is an individual child and is important. We need to do the best that we can for them, and we need to do better for them. We are not shying away from that.

It is early days in the establishment of the LITs. The LITs have the potential to make a real difference, but I do not underestimate the scale of the challenge that they will face.

Mrs Scallon: To suggest that a school provides for special educational needs only if it has specialist provision, when we know that 84% of children with special educational needs are in a mainstream school —

Mrs Guy: Absolutely. That is why the narrative was so disappointing, and that came from the Department. It was not imagined.

Mrs Scallon: Twenty per cent of children have special educational needs. They are in every classroom in every school. Nobody would ever underestimate the value of the work that SENCOs especially and all class teachers and classroom assistants do. We speak regularly to SENCOs too. In the interests of transparency, I will say that, throughout the end-to-end review, we heard similar concerns, and that is really disappointing. As Ronnie said, however, the LITs are only starting out.

I will come in on the question of numbers versus outcomes. A lot of people may refer to the enabling actions as meaning "producing documents", but the enabling actions in the delivery plan set out the outcomes that we want, which are based very much on what, people told us, they want and the issues that we saw throughout the end-to-end review: parents' lack of trust and lack of confidence; children's lack of feeling of belonging and inclusion; and the lack of trust in the system and even in our workforce. That is why we set out the outcomes in the way that we did. Numbers will underpin all the data that will come back —

Mrs Guy: There is some really good stuff in there, Janis, but it is whether —

Mrs Scallon: — but they will be in the context of outcomes. We will know the outcomes for each child who is a participant in an intervention, whether through the local impact teams or through one of the 13 projects under the transformation fund. We have set out the outcomes framework in the way that we have so that, at a population level, we will be able to look at how parents feel, how our workforce feels, how our children feel and how the system feels. Furthermore, from each intervention that we make, we will know if and how those children are better off. We will know quickly and be able to do something about it.

Mrs Guy: The right ideas are in the document, and I look forward to seeing them come out — I really do — but are you putting in teams with the level of expertise that will match the kids' needs?

Mr Armour: That is a work in progress, if I am honest with you.

Mrs Guy: The two things are obviously linked.

Mr Armour: Yes. It is a work in progress, but I am optimistic that we will make significant progress. The opportunities that will come from the information that Janis has just outlined are a real positive. We will see quickly whether those things are working.

Mrs Guy: Are we actively capturing data right now?

Mrs Scallon: As each intervention is lifted up, we will start to capture those data. That is the plan — best laid plans — but that is the plan.

The Deputy Chairperson (Mr Sheehan): Succinctly, please, Janis.

Mrs Scallon: Sorry. With regard to the outcomes, at a population level, that will require large-scale surveys. We have those surveys in design. The EA has a survey in the field about its services, so we look forward to those data coming through. It would be remiss of us to release more surveys. As a former statistician, I cannot burden people with too many surveys. We need to let that EA survey finish before we

population surveys.

Mr Baker: Thank you. Ronnie, you said that it is about children. The devil is in the detail. Placements were an absolute disaster: hundreds of children are not in school right now because their places are not ready. How many mainstream children were offered a place and are sitting at home right now waiting for that place to be built?

Mr Armour: My understanding from the latest statistics that I have from the EA is that 80 children are not yet able to avail themselves of a full-time place.

Mr Baker: Do they all have additional needs?

Mr Armour: Yes.

Mr Baker: How many mainstream are in that position?

Mr Armour: I do not have that figure.

Mrs Scallon: I do not have that.

Mr Baker: This is my problem: it is seen as acceptable to leave children with additional needs sitting at home but not acceptable to do that for mainstream. That is the problem. That is what you are not getting your heads round.

Mr Armour: It is absolutely not acceptable.

Mr Baker: But it is happening, and it is happening again.

Mr Armour: I understand that it is happening.

Mr Baker: To be fair, Ronnie, you started by saying that there was an improvement. I am just pointing out to you how much it is not an improvement.

Mr Armour: Well, I think, year-on-year —

Mr Baker: That is where there needs to be [Inaudible.]

Mr Armour: What I am saying to you is that, year-on-year, there has been improvement. It is not acceptable —

Mr Baker: It is not year-on-year improvement.

Mr Armour: — that 80 children —

Mr Baker: It is just the same as last year.

Mr Armour: It is not acceptable that 80 children are waiting for a full-time placement. I am not shying away from that.

Mr Baker: It happened last year, and the same children will not be placed in the right setting and will end up on reduced timetables. I am already dealing with children who are on reduced timetables. My point is that the EA and the Department are fundamentally getting the operational side of it wrong.

Mr Armour: It is not right to say that we are fundamentally getting the operational side of it wrong. We are trying to —

Mr Baker: Those children would be in school, if we were not getting it wrong.

Mr Armour: We are trying to ensure that we have the places available and ready. The challenge that we faced was that we were still working towards the end of the last term to secure those places. When those places are —

Mr Baker: You were too late. That was too late.

Mr Armour: I am not arguing that we were not.

Mr Baker: I do not want to waste all my time on that. I just make that point. I was not even going to talk about placements, but I wanted to make that point because of how you portrayed it at the start of the questions. It is not better than last year or the year before that; in fact, this year was probably worse.

The Deputy Chairperson (Mr Sheehan): Just for information, Ronnie, the Autism Reviewer was in with us last week, and she said that she knows of hundreds of children who are still sitting at home, despite the fact that the figure coming from the EA and the Department is just 80.

Mr Armour: The information that the Department has received from the EA is that there are 80. I absolutely accept —

Mr Baker: She was referring to the invisible children. It is children who get placed in a school but the data is not then held.

I will move on. I want to touch on the transport side. There is a knock-on effect in that, if you do not place children within an appropriate time frame, there will be transport issues. How much investment has gone into the IT system for transport? Are they still working off pen and paper?

Mr Armour: I could not give you the statistic on what the EA has spent, but —

Mr Baker: Does the EA have an IT system that is adequate to deal with mapping out or correlating all the data correctly, or is it still working off pen and paper?

Mrs Scallon: I think that there might be a review of that ongoing, but I know that there has been some —

Mr Baker: A review? You can see that, again, it comes down to prioritisation.

Mrs Scallon: — mapping done in that area.

Mr Baker: OK.

Mrs Scallon: I think that the EA has been working with Land and Property Services (LPS) on that.

Mr Baker: When will the new SEN regulations and code of practice be presented to the Assembly for scrutiny?

Mr Armour: We are working on the regulations. We are due to have them by the end of the calendar year.

Mrs Scallon: We hope to bring —

Mr Baker: Would you be surprised if I did not take that on trust? In response to a question for written answer, the Minister told me, on 13 March 2024, that the regulations were in the final stages of being drafted. That was in March 2024, and we will now be waiting until the end of the next calendar year.

Mr Armour: We are saying that, on the timescale that we are working to, they will be ready by the end of the calendar year. Obviously, the Committee will have an opportunity to consider them. It is not about making excuses, but we have to face the reality of the pressures that the Department faces in trying to do all that we are trying to do. I am not suggesting that such things are not important, but —

Mr Baker: Further delays to implementing new SEN regulations and a new SEN code of practice inhibit efforts to transform SEN provision.

Mr Armour: We are now, collectively, with all that we are doing, in a much better place in that the Committee can hold us to account.

Mr Baker: We are trying our best, but the goalposts are moved every time.

Mr Armour: I am saying clearly that the regulations will be ready by the end of this calendar year.

Mr Baker: OK. I will move on. Will you tell us the proportion of SEN statements that are currently issued outside the current 26-week framework?

Mr Armour: Deirdre, do you have that precise figure?

Ms Deirdre Ward (Department of Education): Not the precise figure, but it is very high.

Mr Baker: It will not surprise you to hear that, when I sat down with a SENCO in a school last week, I heard that she is really doing three roles and that, of the 41 children whom she supports, only 16 get that support because of the delays. That is happening right now, which brings me back to this question: how are we in a better position than we were last year or the year before? It seems to me that it is getting worse.

Mr Armour: What we have now, since the Minister published his delivery plan and action plan —

Mr Baker: Part of his delivery plan is to bring it down to 22 weeks.

Mr Armour: Yes.

Mr Baker: You would have to be sceptical. If we cannot do 26 weeks, how will we get to 22 weeks? It is just words on a page that sound good as a sound bite from the Minister. He has been in post long enough.

Mr Armour: No, it is not just words on a page. There is a genuine intention to work towards that, but nobody is suggesting that these things are easy.

Mr Baker: If you prioritise it, you should see improvements. My point is that we are not seeing improvements. I have just laid out four things: placements, transport, regulations and statements. Those are four major issues that parents and school leaders come up against, and we have seen no improvement.

Mr Armour: We need to be judged on what we are now committing to through the delivery plan and the action plan.

Mr Baker: OK. I will have to judge you next year.

I will make this my last question, Chair; sorry.

The Deputy Chairperson (Mr Sheehan): Quickly please, Danny.

Mr Baker: I will probably have to ask you this question again next year, Janis: where are we with an inclusion policy?

Mrs Scallon: We have some work ongoing with the European Agency for Special Needs and Inclusive Education. To be fair, Danny, inclusion is not necessarily a policy; it is a practice. It is what happens in our classrooms, corridors —

Mr Baker: Should we not have a policy? With all that is happening, should we not have a policy?

Mrs Scallon: In the legislation and the code of practice, there is a presumption of mainstream. The European Agency has done quite a bit of work for us, under a technical support instrument, to look at how inclusive our entire legislation is. Then, it is looking not just at special educational needs but across every policy in the Education Department — whether it is youth policy, school improvement policy, admissions policy, or area planning policy — to see how inclusive it is.

Mr Baker: When can we expect to see that?

Mrs Scallon: It has done a big piece of work. The next stage of that is happening now: it is back with the technical support instrument team, which is putting together a country policy systems development piece for us. From there, we will need to take that to the Minister, because he will need to approve it. How long that will take I do not know.

Mr Baker: The next mandate?

Mrs Scallon: We are reliant on our colleagues in the European Agency. To be fair, we are getting that from the European Agency gratis; it is not costing money. If we were to do that ourselves, as policymakers in the Department, it could take a really long time. The expertise is sitting in those 36 jurisdictions; there is a team of six people working on it with us across Europe. I look forward to that report coming back to us. The EA has fed into it heavily, and every policy area in the Department has fed into it heavily. We will see what that brings back and what gaps it shows. As I said, it looks at legislation, policy and the implementation and operation of policy, so it is a big piece of work.

In the meantime, under our transformation funding, we will do a project on inclusive capacity building, while acknowledging that a lot of our schools are already very inclusive in what they do. However, people have told us that they would like more training and more capacity building in that, and we will stand that up under the transformation funding.

Mr Baker: Thank you.

Mr Burrows: Thanks, Ronnie, for that and for all the hard work that you and the EA do, because, whilst the numbers are unacceptable, the direction of travel has improved. That is the summary. There are still problems, however.

Figures that came from your Department show that 4,648 pupils a year rely on taxi services, with the longest return journey being two hours and 40 minutes. If a child is spending two hours and 40 minutes on the road, they probably have to get up earlier and have less time for extracurricular activities, less sleep and less time with their family, all of which have a major impact on their life. I think that we would all accept that that is unacceptable.

Mr Armour: Absolutely.

Mr Burrows: I set out the unacceptability of it first. On the value for money aspect, given that 4,648 children a year rely on taxis on any given day, are any of those taxis shared by children? If three children in my development who may not know one another are going to roughly the same place or exactly the same place or if one is passing through to another place, is the system joined up to make sure that that taxi takes all three?

Mr Armour: I cannot comment on the specifics, because I simply do not know. I would have thought so, but I cannot give you a cast-iron guarantee.

Mrs Scallon: Not necessarily. That may not be the case. Again, that is operational data that the Education Authority has access to. Anecdotally, I am aware that some children share taxis. I do not have the granular detail, such as whether they are siblings or live in the same area.

Mr Burrows: In my next question, I was going to ask you to take siblings out of that figure. There is the potential for a massive saving, if it can be coordinated. If a driver is vetted, there is no difficulty with three children being in the same cab, because six, 10 or 12 children can share a bus. Could that be taken —?

Mr Armour: We also have to look at the needs of the individual children.

Mr Burrows: Of course. It needs to be individualised. However, there is potential there. Given that 20% of children have special educational needs, there is the potential for a saving, especially with the use of technology. Given the scale, the EA is almost a taxi coordinator. That is huge.

Mr Armour: It is. It is massive.

Mr Burrows: That is the first point. We could save money by looking at that.

Secondly, some people will not like this question, but I ask questions without judgement. Are there people whose children get a lift to school in a taxi and who also have a Motability car because their child has special educational needs?

Mrs Scallon: I have asked for information on that, because, anecdotally, questions about it come back to us. The first thing that I will say is that a Motability car does not come with a driver. I have asked the Department for Communities whether we can look at that. While the statisticians there have been really helpful in providing lots of information, they cannot answer that question for me.

Mr Burrows: It would trouble me slightly if a car that is provided effectively for a child to be mobile is sitting there while the child is taken to school in a taxi. That issue needs to be quantified, but you tell me that it is being looked at and that it is not easy to get that data.

Mrs Scallon: The data on the Motability scheme sits with the Department for Communities. The data on statementing and transport sits with the EA. It is difficult to join that data. It is even difficult for statisticians in the Department for Communities. I have had several meetings with them on that, if anything, to bust that myth —

Mr Burrows: One hundred per cent. That is why I said I asked it "without judgement".

Mrs Scallon: — by asking, "Can we find out the size and scale of this before we spend time on it?", but they are unable to answer that question for me.

Mr Burrows: That is the value of asking questions that are seen as controversial. I am just trying to get facts. That was put to me by several people, and I want to be able to go back and say that either there is something in it or there is not.

Mr Armour: We hear that anecdotally as well, as Janis said. It is a perfectly legitimate question. Unfortunately, much as we would like to, we are not in a position to give an answer.

Mr Burrows: We are a small country, so two Departments should be able to extract data in some way. I know that it is difficult, but it is —.

Mrs Scallon: There are legislative barriers to that in the way that our legislation is set up. That information cannot always be shared, and individuals cannot always be identified and matched.

Mr Burrows: I understand that.

I have two more questions. One is easy in the sense that it is not in any way controversial. It is about male teachers. I have a real concern about the lack of male teachers. It is not healthy for our young people. I asked the Minister what the obstacles and barriers are to males joining the teaching profession. I think that he misinterpreted my question: he said, "Oh, there are no obstacles and barriers. We just need to encourage them". I am not saying that there is any discrimination against men as such or a physical or legal barrier, but there must be a cultural barrier in our society given that the numbers are so stark. It cannot be healthy for young men who need role models and people who understand them and all that. Is there any understanding of that, or is work being done to see how we can get more men into the profession? By the way, in my old job, which was in the police, questions were asked if the workforce was 90% male. It is an important issue for society.

Mr Armour: It is more prevalent in the primary sector than in the post-primary sector. I suspect that it is a cultural thing. We do not have a specific answer for why that is and why males are more attracted to the post-primary sector than to the primary sector. I absolutely take your point about role models. It is important. We want to do everything that we can to encourage males.

Mr Burrows: It has shifted since I was at school, when there were lots of male teachers. There are two points in that. We talk about having role models in tackling violence against women and girls and showing good behaviours towards women. What boys see at school is really important, but they are not seeing those good role models. There is then the educational underachievement of boys. Those role models would show them the value of good education. It is important work, and we are missing something.

My final question is on SEN. If the numbers — these are children, so we should not talk about numbers — are currently 20% and have increased over the past five years, what were they five years ago? Were they 10%?

Mrs Scallon: Bear with me; sorry.

Mr Burrows: Are you modelling what the figure would be, if the same increase occurred in the next five to 10 years, or is there any indication that the increase is slowing down? If not, at what point do we say, "Something cannot be right"? Is it when the numbers are at 40%, 60%, 80% or 90%? Where does it end, according to the modelled figures?

Mrs Scallon: Yes, we have looked at that. We have pupil population projections. We can project the figures for children who will require specialist provision classes and the figures for children who will require a special school place. It is difficult to extract the number of children who will require such provision but in a mainstream class. Overall, however, we can project the figures.

Our primary-school population is in major decline. It is probably the biggest decline that we have seen in decades. However, that is not having an impact on the rise that we see in children presenting with special educational needs. If we take those projections on a ceteris paribus basis where we do nothing — we do no transformation — and everything else remains the same, the figure could go up from 20%, which is where it is now, towards the 40% mark in the next 10 to 15 years. It is on an exponential rise at the moment. If we do not intercept it and do something differently to support our children, it will continue to rise exponentially. There are a lot of caveats in that —

Mr Burrows: I understand 100%, but it is certainly worth being aware of.

Mrs Scallon: — but, yes, I have modelled that to see where it is going.

Mr Burrows: The issue becomes controversial. I raised it in my first Committee meeting. We just have to accept whoever says that they have SEN, and, if the numbers keep going up and up, we will have to deal with that. However, as a society, there has to be a reason why it is happening. Some of it is genetics. Something is driving up the level of SEN. Is it mobile phones, which can affect certain things such as ADHD or make them worse? We need to have honest conversations about the matter; otherwise we will have a generation of children in which half or 60% have SEN.

Mr Armour: You are absolutely right. It is not just here, of course, as you were alluding to; it is happening well beyond these islands.

Mr Burrows: We need to have the appetite for —.

Mr Baker: Sorry, Chair. I just want to make a point. What we are saying here is really dangerous, especially after the week that we have just had with a lot of misinformation coming from Donald Trump about children with autism. We need to be clear that the population of children or anybody else with additional needs has not changed: there is more data collection on it now. That is why more children are getting into the system.

Mr Burrows: Diagnosis is one factor.

Mr Baker: You need to be careful about what you say.

The Deputy Chairperson (Mr Sheehan): Through the Chair, please.

Mr Burrows: We are trying to be careful in asking the questions.

Mr Baker: It did not sound like it to me.

The Deputy Chairperson (Mr Sheehan): Are you finished, Jon?

Mr Burrows: I am. They were carefully asked questions, and Hansard will reflect that.

Mr Brooks: I concur with Jon. I am not pushing a Trump agenda on this. I do not have an answer, but I would like one. I hear from some that there are no answers, but that does not mean that there is not a cause that we have not found yet. Strangely, autism seems to be the only medical issue that we have that nobody — well, not nobody — some quarters do not want to find a reason for. It is not about stigmatising anybody; it is just about trying to find a reason for it. If something is there and there is nothing that we can do about it, that is fine, and we will deal with it, but I find the lack of curiosity on the subject at times really strange.

Mr Baker: Sweden did a massive study of 2·5 million children.

Mr Brooks: I do not accept that the increase is only because we are identifying it more. I am open to hearing more, but we should always be inquisitive about such things.

Danny was talking to you about the improvement year-on-year, and you said that the numbers had been improving year-on-year. Improvement is just that: it is not saying that things are perfect. Are you confident that what we see is an improvement year-on-year? Nothing is perfect, because some things in the system continue to be unacceptable, but are you confident that we are seeing an improvement?

Mr Armour: I think that we are. We are certainly working much better and more closely with the EA to drive that improvement. We are working to a strategic agenda that the Minister has set, and he is holding us to account for what we do. Are we perfect? In response to Mr Baker, I think, I answered, "No".

Mr Baker: The Minister said that.

Mr Armour: We are far from perfect. We need to do much better. I do not want to get into the placement issue, but that is an example of where we need to work better across the system. It is not and must never be about blaming individuals for where we are. It is about how we can work better. If we can work with the unions and with schools and identify the places that we need over the next couple of months, we can do even better next year on placements and on having children in full-time education so that we do not have a figure of 80%. I cannot guarantee that that is where we will be, but we want to work towards that.

Mr Brooks: I was going to come to that. I know anecdotally that, in my East Belfast constituency, Dundonald High School, which I often talk about here, is seeing new classrooms put in and that the Minister has progressed plans to extend Greenwood Assessment Centre to allow it to take on a greater number of pupils and move them to the old Elmgrove site. That is great news and has been welcomed in the constituency. Are you confident that the measures that the Minister is determined to take in the short term, not just in the medium and long term, will see improvement in the coming years?

Mr Armour: Yes, those measures will deliver improvement in coming years, but they alone will not be enough. I know that you are not suggesting that, but they will not be enough; we will still need to do more.

Mr Brooks: Of course, this has to be an Executive priority. Is it fair to say that the Minister and the Department could do more and do it more quickly if the Executive and the Finance Minister were able to release the funds to allow it to happen?

Mr Armour: There is no doubt about that. There is an Executive commitment to the issue, so the Minister has brought a capital paper to the Executive, and he will shortly bring a resource paper on the funding that we need to drive forward. There is no question that, if we had additional funding, we could do more and do it more quickly.

Mr Brooks: There is, therefore, the challenge to the Finance Minister and the Executive that those who want to make the matter a priority and care about the changes to SEN education need to put their money where their mouth is.

Mrs Mason: I want to go back to Michelle's point about SENCOs. We were told that the educational psychology service review would reduce their workload. Following that discussion, I had lots of phone calls from SENCOs. This is a genuine question: what aspects of the new process are taking workload off SENCOs?

Mrs Scallon: I will talk about that, and then Deirdre may want to come in on the review of the ed psych model, the time allocation model and things like that.

When it comes to local impact teams, a SENCO previously had to make maybe 10 referrals to different services for one child and eight for another child, but there is now a single referral, so there is less of an admin load for the SENCO. Another thing that will really help — this touches on a couple of other questions — is the digitisation of the statementing process. That is really important, because, for the parents and children who are in that process, it is a 26-week process and very long, and a lot of questions about where a case is come to SENCOs. The digitisation of the statementing process through the EA Connect portal will make that information visible to a parent, so there should be a reduced workload for SENCOs in that the same queries will not come to them.

Deirdre, do you want to say something about the time allocation model and the change in the educational psychology service?

Ms Deirdre Ward (Department of Education): Yes. Schools continue to be allocated a number of hours for educational psychology. There has been an uplift in the number of educational psychologists who have been recruited over the past while, along with higher numbers of psychology assistants and assistant psychologists. We know that there is a shortage in the workforce generally, so it is about trying to divvy up roles so that skills are used appropriately and at the right level of complexity.

Mrs Mason: Are educational psychologists' hours being reduced because of workforce issues or because of the new review?

Mr Armour: They are not being reduced.

Mrs Scallon: It will not be done on the basis of hours.

Ms Ward: It is not about that.

Mrs Mason: Why are school leaders and SENCOs saying that they see less and less of their educational psychologists, and why do educational psychologists say that they will not see SENCOs as often? Again, that is a genuine question.

Mrs Scallon: Maybe it is a wee bit nuanced. I know that I am not meant to ask questions, but educational psychologists' areas have changed with the LIT boundaries coming in. Some schools may have had links with the same educational psychologist for years, but that change —

Mrs Mason: Are those ed psychs now looking after more schools in their area?

Mrs Scallon: — is happening, so the ed psych is moving, and the school will get a different educational psychologist because it is in a different LIT area.

Mr Armour: It is not about more schools but about different schools.

Mrs Scallon: They have moved to match the trust boundaries to make working with other allied health professionals easier. That is my understanding.

Mrs Mason: Janis, you said that you spoke to SENCOs: do you not hear that from them? Colleagues and I met a group of SENCOs. I jotted down some of the terms that were used in the meeting. SENCOs feel "exhausted", "undervalued" and as though they are being "blamed". They are questioning their career choice. They feel "completely forgotten" and "patronised". That meeting followed the discussion that we had with Department officials. SENCOs do not see light at the end of the tunnel. Are you not hearing that?

Mrs Scallon: There is an action in the delivery plan, Cathy, for that very reason. When we spoke to SENCOs — they do an amazing job — my sense was that the job had become more about paperwork and administration than about what they signed up for, which was —.

Mrs Mason: That is while they are still trying to look after the children in the classroom.

Mrs Scallon: Yes. Not all SENCOs are teaching SENCOs. They all have time off-timetable, but some are full-time SENCOs.

Mrs Mason: Even full-time SENCOs who do not teach are still being called on because of the complex behavioural issues that they see in classes.

Mrs Scallon: Absolutely. That is why we have the line in the delivery plan about looking at the role of SENCOs.

Mr Armour: To answer your question, we are hearing that from SENCOs.

Mrs Mason: I accept that there is a line in the delivery plan about SENCOs, but that means absolutely nothing to them; it is words on a page. What communication is going on? They do not see light at the end of the tunnel. That is pretty stark. How do we give SENCOs confidence that that will work? They do not see it at the minute.

Mr Armour: We have to demonstrate through our actions that change is coming. Things with the review are at a very early stage, and we are hopeful that it will deliver change. I absolutely accept that SENCOs do an amazing job. I have nothing but the highest regard for them. I hear what you say, and it is not just about a line in an action plan. However, that is important, because it is about how we deliver the review.

Mrs Mason: The PAC report mentioned the importance of early intervention and said that there is "not enough focus" on it. I hear the phrase "early intervention" all the time, and it drives me mad because it sounds like a buzz phrase. In a sentence, what does early intervention mean to you?

Mrs Scallon: For us in special educational needs, early intervention is not just in the early years; it is about stepping in at the point at which need is identified, Cathy. We have always talked about the Minister's reform agenda. The whole premise of that agenda is shifting everything left. At the minute, we know that parents feel that their only recourse in getting any support for a child is to get a statement. They spend a really long time trying to get that statement, and, when they get it, it does not necessarily provide everything that, they thought, was going to come as support.

There is a suite of early intervention projects under the transformation fund that we have that look at the time before children come to school in the very early years and at stepping in then. They also look at children in preschool. We already have the preschool inclusion fund. We managed to get some early learning and childcare funding last year, and we put £1·2 million out to preschools. Having been around a number of our preschools, I know that they have said that that has been really positive. We are stepping up an evaluation on that in October, and we have secured another £3 million that we hope to be able to put out from the preschool inclusion fund.

It is about getting in during the early years and recognising that, before school, needs are not always identified. In preschool, with that 1:13 ratio, which is two adults in the class and 26 children, there are children with special educational needs that have not been identified. Supporting those children is difficult in that environment, so that extra little bit of funding is for preschools to support those children in whatever way they see fit. For school-age children, it is about looking at speech, language and communication needs and in-school support and at what that looks like. We have a suite of five early intervention projects, and that is what we mean. It looks at pre-preschool, preschool and the early years in school and configuring the best model of support.

Mr Armour: There is certainly overlap between the work that we are doing on SEN and the early learning and childcare strategy. As well as the initiatives that Janis referred to, there is the Fair Play grant scheme, which is a DOH programme that is being driven forward, and there is the Bright Start grant scheme for children with additional needs and disability.

Mrs Mason: Ronnie, I take all that on board, but, again, when we talk to preschools and childcare professionals, we find that not all of them get those grants. There is a limited number that can get them. Without getting into a discussion on preschools, there are a lot of issues around preschools. When the childcare and early learning strategy comes along, will we see that as a main focus for getting in at that early stage? A lot of the issues can be identified from birth and pre-birth. What is being done in conjunction with the Department of Health on that?

Mr Armour: It will certainly be a focus of the strategy when it comes forward. As I said, we are working with Health, and it is one of the areas that we have identified as a need from Health. There are significant resource challenges for Health as well. It is an issue that we will take forward in discussion with the Department of Health.

The Deputy Chairperson (Mr Sheehan): I have one final question, Ronnie. Recommendation 7 in the PAC report states:

It says that that recommendation is complete. I heard from the Children's Law Centre not that long ago that the EA was conceding 97% of appeals. Can you give us any idea of the percentage of complaints that the EA is conceding at the minute?

Mr Armour: I did not think that the figure was as high as 90%; I think that it is around 80%. I am not saying that that is better, but, for accuracy, the latest figure that I have seen is around 80%.

The Deputy Chairperson (Mr Sheehan): In giving a rationale for the extremely high number of appeals that have been conceded, the Children's Law Centre certainly felt that the EA was refusing to give the proper support to children to allow them to have statements in the hope, basically, that the parents would go away. In many cases, that happens. Some parents do not have the stamina to progress through the bureaucracy, and it is only when they receive help from organisations such as the Children's Law Centre that they get that support. That is an area that we will keep an eye on.

Mr Armour: OK.

The Deputy Chairperson (Mr Sheehan): Finally, at the outset today, we talked about value for money and the inability of your Department, Ronnie, and the EA to demonstrate value for money. We heard examples of that, and Jon gave the example of the taxis and so on. However, there is still the ask for more money: "Give us more money". Nobody can demonstrate that we are getting value for money for the hundreds of millions of pounds that are being poured into the Department and the EA.

I will leave you with that thought, and, hopefully, the next time that you are in, we can talk about really concrete examples of how the public — the taxpayer — get value for money from all the money that is being spent.

Thank you all for your time here today. Go raibh maith agaibh.