Official Report: Minutes of Evidence

The Chairperson (Mr Mathison): I welcome from the Education Authority (EA) Dr Tomas Adell, chief transformation officer; Ms Elaine Craig, interim assistant director of special educational needs and disability (SEND) statutory support services; and Ms Tracey Logan, interim head of SEND statutory services. Thank you all for attending. If I got any of the job titles wrong — I know that the EA is in a state of flux organisationally with roles — please correct me. Apologies for keeping you waiting, but we will hopefully have plenty of time for the evidence session.

You have provided the Committee with a really comprehensive briefing paper. I will hand over to you to make some opening remarks, should there be anything further that you want to speak about from the paper. Please take up to 10 minutes, after which we will move on to questions from members. We aim for around five minutes an enquiry for each member. Please bear those timescales in mind.

Dr Tomas Adell (Education Authority): Thank you for having us here again, Chair. It is always good to come up to speak to the Committee.

We have provided you with a comprehensive briefing paper, so I will not go through it in detail. I will try to keep my remarks short. They will not take 10 minutes, because having a discussion through questions and answers is a much more effective use of the time.

There are a few things that I do want to say, though. The first is that we are really proud in the EA of our statutory assessment service. The staff are really dedicated and do really hard work. The special educational needs (SEN) link officers, SEN support officers and others in the service really care about getting the right outcomes for children. It is important that I highlight that when I talk about the service, because a failure in the service is not a failure of the people who are delivering the service but a failure of the structures and systems that deliver it. I am sure that we will talk about difficult things here today, so I put on record that we are really proud of the people who work in the service. In my short time in the Education Authority, I have been struck by how committed those who deliver the services are.

There are a few other things that I want to highlight. Our statutory assessment service has not always been the best. There have been failures, and we are the first to admit that. We are not hiding or trying to deny it. We currently hold about 34,000 statements. There has been a rapid increase in the number of statements. That has put significant pressure on how the EA delivers services, and it has caused problems and long delays in the past. There have, however, been significant improvements, which I will highlight. We have a statutory target for assessment of 26 weeks. We are not currently meeting that in all cases, but the average is not 26 weeks. It is much better than it has been. The trend is upward. We are not perfect yet, but we are getting better every day. The trajectory is really good.

The biggest challenge for us in meeting targets and providing a good statutory assessment service is the placement of children with SEN. We have discussed that before, so I will not rehearse the challenges, but, if we do not have a placement for children, we cannot finalise their statement. That is the biggest delay that we encounter with the whole process.

With that in mind, there are a few other things that we are doing to improve the process. On 12 January next year, we plan to go live with our new digital system for the statutory assessment process. Digitalisation will make for a much more effective system, which means better decision-making for children. It means that we will have better control over what is happening, when it happens and how it happens. It will be much better for parents, because they will able to see what is happening with their child's case in real time. They will be able to log on to our portal and see what is happening, what stage we are at, what deadlines we have, what timelines there are and when they can expect to hear things. That is good for parents. It is also good for us. When we make things more efficient, our link officers can spend more of their time working with parents and schools to find the best outcome for children, rather than having to assist in doing system work. That is a really positive thing.

I ask for support from the Committee at this point. On 12 December, we will close the old system. Between 13 December and 12 January, people will be able to apply by email to us. Cases that are received before 12 January will not use the new system; they will use the old system. Cases received after 12 January will use the new system. It would therefore be better for parents to wait until 12 January, because they would then have the benefit of the new system. When you are working with families, I encourage you to ask people to wait until 12 January, because it will be better for them.

The 26-week target is challenging, but we are getting there. With the new digital system, if we have placements next year, we are fairly confident that we will hit the 26-week target in the vast majority of cases by next summer. I would go as far as to say that, with the new statutory frameworks that may or may not come in at some point, we will be very close to meeting the 22-week target by next summer. If you have a question about targets today, I ask that you bring us back in June next year to see where we are at then, because we should be at 26 weeks.

That is all that I have to say. Thank you very much. I am happy to take any questions that the Committee has.

The Chairperson (Mr Mathison): Thank you. I wish that every witness could get through their initial presentation as quickly as that. It makes my job easier.

I thank Tomas and Gillian Cuthbert for attending our stakeholder event last week. It was really positive to have EA engagement at it. The individuals who had EA officials at their table welcomed having their perspective. The engagement was really welcome, so we really appreciate that.

I probably should have been clearer at the start about the briefing. Our inquiry is looking at the statutory assessment service and at the statementing process specifically. It has proven difficult in some of the evidence sessions for all of us to keep to one issue, because everything is connected. We will do our best, but there is always the risk that the conversation will stray into other territory.

Mr Brooks: Towards the end of your remarks, Tomas, you mentioned changes to the service. Will you put that in a note and send it to us? It is important that office staff in particular are aware of that. When we are up here —.

The Chairperson (Mr Mathison): I think that that is true for all MLAs.

Dr Adell: The public have that message. I just wanted to take the opportunity to highlight that to you when I was speaking about the process.

The Chairperson (Mr Mathison): That is well worth noting.

It is clear from your briefing and from the written material that there are two levels involved. There is the operational delivery of statementing, which includes the challenges with meeting the 26-week time frame, and there is the policy side, which is what is trying to be achieved. I will focus on the policy side first. Do you think that we need a new model of support for children with a statement? If you do, what should that look like?

Dr Adell: The simple answer is yes. Currently, if a child has a statement of special educational needs, the support that we provide could be in a special school setting or could be specialist provision in a mainstream setting with classroom assistant support. Classroom assistants do fantastic work. They are a really dedicated workforce. They work really hard. We are not good at recognising the good work that classroom assistants do, however. They are at a generic grade or in a generic band, so to speak. We do not recognise specialist training. We do not provide career progression or, frankly, appropriate pay for them, given their specialisms. If we did so, we would provide a much better support package at the end of a statement that looked at different models and different grades of support, including specialist support. If a child required specialist behavioural support, we should provide special educational needs behavioural support. If a child needed a smaller class size, is that specialist provision in mainstream schools (SPiMS) or a support offer of a smaller size that can change as the child grows and develops different needs? Doing that would require completely different thinking about what to do. If we were to take a random statement from the 34,000 statements that we have and look at what we offer at the end, the answer would probably not be a generic classroom assistant but something more specific. That is something that we have to do.

That is in the reform agenda that the Minister has set up. We are working on that to find solutions. I cannot go into any detail on that, because we have not yet finished that work, but we are working on finding solutions.

The Chairperson (Mr Mathison): I have two things to ask on that. My first question probably tracks back to the Committee's earliest conversations on the issue. The spend on adult support is nearly £300 million, which is a huge sum of money. How do we convince parents that this is about having a better model of support and not about saving money? If we are to bring parents and families with us, we need to get this right.

Dr Adell: Absolutely. I can be categorically clear: we are not about saving money here. This is not a money-saving exercise. None of our savings process relates directly to SEN provision. As you know, this is not a money-saving exercise; it is about providing the best support for children.

We can look at other jurisdictions. I am Swedish, so I have the joy of reading Swedish. The package that is provided in Sweden is much wider. It includes professionals from healthcare, educationalists, behavioural specialists and others. It is a package for a child that actually meets their needs. That could be one-to-one support but, quite often, it is not. It is support to enable the child to live and to be in an education setting, like other children, with the support to enable them to enjoy the same experience as those other children. We do not want children to become — this will sound really bad — addicted to an adult. Rather, we want the adult to enable the child to live a really good childhood in preparation for their future, academic or otherwise. That requires good and dedicated specialist staff, so let us make sure that that happens.

The Chairperson (Mr Mathison): I will ask this quickly and broaden it a bit. There has been a bit of resistance from the Department to setting out the costings for the SEN reform agenda and the delivery plan in particular. The £27 million for the pilot projects is in the mix. That came through the transformation board. There are then higher figures in the region of £500 million to do everything. It is not really clear, therefore, how much any of it costs. You talked about having a better support model for children, which, if I have understood you correctly, is about having early intervention and a wider suite of support options available at the point of statementing. That is what I understood from your response. What is your sense of the level of investment that would be needed, operationally, to deliver that sort of model?

Dr Adell: I will answer in a way that will probably be unhelpful. We could provide much better support with what we have. Let us start from there.

If we have a budget, we can make sure that we deliver maximum outcomes with it. If the EA, as a delivery organisation, were to be given more money, we could deliver even better services. What I am saying is that it is not about cost itself but ensuring that we spend the money that we have in the best way possible. We could spend an infinite amount of money on children to get the best outcomes. The more we spend, the more and the better we will get, basically. We can, however, do so much more, even with what we have.

The Chairperson (Mr Mathison): I will ask another question, which is connected to that; it is on the legislation. That came up in the Committee's previous session, and the witnesses were clear. I was surprised at the level of alignment coming from an umbrella organisation in the community and voluntary sector, where, traditionally, relationships with the EA have not always been positive. A lot of what the two witnesses in the previous session were saying was not a million miles away from what the EA has been saying. I do not want to speak on their behalf or say that they were speaking for the EA, but those witnesses were absolutely clear that early intervention is where the majority of investment should go. They were also clear that, even when that is done, there will always be a role for statementing and that there should be transparency around the pathway and process for that. They made those two points but did not suggest that they were mutually exclusive.

There is concern that our statutory framework may be up for change. The draft code of practice could be introduced in the new year — we are not sure. I would like to get a sense of the EA's perspective on that. Does the legislative framework that we currently operate under give you the opportunity to deliver transformed services, or does it curtail you? Is the draft revised code of practice what we need it to be, or do we need to look at something completely different: a legislative framework that enables transformation and, ultimately, good outcomes for children?

Dr Adell: Obviously, it would be wrong for us, as a delivery organisation, to make political statements. We can transform the existing models to provide much better support without legislative change. We do not need new legislation to change the support model for children with statements, provide an intervention or have a more fluid system for children. Some children will always require a statement of special educational needs, but that does not mean that we have to have a system of silos. The support system that we provide can still be flexible in catering for every child's need. Those things are not mutually exclusive. Therefore, I do not see the legislation as a barrier for us. Can we improve on the legislation? The answer is, of course, always; we are never perfect, so we should never settle and think that we have got it right. I do not think that the legislation is a barrier. In fact, it is not a barrier. It is that simple.

The Chairperson (Mr Mathison): Therefore legislative change is a question, more broadly, for the Department. I will ask one other question on that. Tribunals come up as a factor in the system. Ultimately, they are the mechanism by which a parent can hold the system to account if they do not think the statutory assessment process is working appropriately. There seems to be agreement across the board that we have too many tribunals and that the high number suggests that something is not working in the system. If we delivered an effective model of support for children with a statement, or for any child with SEN, would that drive down the number of tribunals? Do you foresee that as an outcome, if we get this right?

Dr Adell: The simple answer is yes. The longer answer is that one reason why there are so many tribunal cases is a lack of trust in the EA. If we come to a decision, people do not trust what we say — for very good reasons, mind you. They do not want to trust us, so they challenge what we have come up with, through a tribunal. If we provide a better support model that is more tailored to a child's needs and is clearer about meeting the needs of the child, that helps us to build confidence with the public. We must deliver that, of course; talking about it is not enough. Delivering that should drive down the number of tribunals. We have seen a significant reduction in the number of tribunal cases. We are much better than what we were, but it is still not an acceptable level. That is because we are much quicker, and we are dealing with parents and their children much better than we were. We have started that process by providing a better support offer and we will, undoubtedly, provide better support for children. Therefore there will be less need to appeal what we say.

The Chairperson (Mr Mathison): That is me for questions. I wanted to have the opportunity to discuss some of the policy aspects. I have no doubt that other members will want to get into the issue of delivery, because there is an accountability aspect to everything that we do here. However, for the purpose of the inquiry, it is good to understand the direction of travel on transformation. We can explore some of that in more detail with the Department.

Cara wants to come in. If other members want to come in, please indicate.

Ms Hunter: Thank you, panel. I have three questions, so I will try to get through them in the time that I have. In my experience as an MLA, there is systemic delay and unmet need when it comes to getting our children statemented effectively. The briefing states that children can wait months or even years for a diagnosis or intervention and that, often, it takes years. How many children are outside the statutory timescales for statements? What is the longest wait in the system? Do you have that information to hand?

Ms Tracey Logan (Education Authority): Hi, Cara. The longest wait, at the moment, is 55 weeks. You talked about a delay in getting a statement. I want to be clear that a statement is not led by diagnosis. The SEN and medical categories, which were introduced a number of years ago by DE, are very much about how the child is presenting at school and how they are functioning. That is what the assessment is based on. Therefore diagnosis, in itself, is not going to impact on the delay in the statutory assessment. What was your other question?

Ms Hunter: How many children are currently outside the statutory timescales for statements?

Ms Logan: As of this morning, 75. There are different reasons for those, as you will appreciate. Some of those are due to internal delay. Some are due to capacity issues in the schools, which we are trying to address to seek placements. There are others for which, due to statutory processes, we have to seek approval for placements etc.

There has been a vast improvement. I am proud of the service and passionate about it. I looked at some stats yesterday, in preparation for coming here, and there have been improvements. In June, we were sitting with something like 12·5% of children waiting over 26 weeks for statutory assessment. As of Monday, we were at 5%. That is a vast reduction. The team is working really hard. We have moved the focus. There has been a lot of focus on 26 weeks. That was never the focus for me. We need to ensure that we are getting the proposed statements out by 18 weeks. That is the statutory time frame.

Tomas mentioned that we were meeting the statutory time frames. The average wait for a statement is 26 weeks — 25·4, to be precise — and the average time frame for getting a proposed statement out is 18 weeks. Therefore, for the most part, we are within the statutory time frames. For the other ones, we are really trying to focus on what the delays are and whether there are voices etc that need to come in at that point.

Ms Hunter: Every year, in the lead up to September, we see a real challenge with getting the correct placements. In the previous session, I talked about ensuring that we get the right placement to fit the child's needs. Every child has that fundamental right. How many children with special educational needs began this academic year without a suitable place? What legal protections are breached when that occurs?

Dr Adell: I do not have the placement numbers with me. I can only apologise.

Ms Logan: I can answer that. At the beginning of September, six children did not have a place. I would argue about the appropriateness of the placements. When we look at the definition of SEN provision, as set out in the Education (Northern Ireland) Order 1996, it is for a child who needs something that is "additional to, or otherwise different from" what is normally available in a mainstream school. When we take children through, we use the Special Educational Needs and Disability (Northern Ireland) Order 2005 (SENDO) and children are placed. The default is a mainstream school, unless it is incompatible with the wishes of the parent or the efficient education of other children. That is the legal test. No matter what we do with any children in the system going through the statutory process, those are the questions that we have to answer when we get a parental preference for a particular school. There may have been children waiting for a particular type of placement. Regardless of recommendation, in September there were six children who did not have a place.

We worked with the various schools where there were delays around contingencies. It is about understanding the appropriateness piece because the default will always be for a mainstream school when we are working through potential placements.

Ms Hunter: Thank you. It is helpful for the Committee to have those numbers.

Lastly, one of the key issues that I am working on is the unregulated use of reduced timetables. In our pack, it states that there is no statutory framework, no oversight with the Education Authority and no centralised data collection. Why does the Education Authority not hold comprehensive data on children who are forced into reduced timetables? When will that gap be closed? It is something that has come up a few times in my constituency office, and I am curious about what kind of work you are doing to explore that further.

The Chairperson (Mr Mathison): I know that that is a big topic, but please try to give a brief answer.

Ms Hunter: It is a big ask.

Ms Elaine Craig (Education Authority): It is about attendance data. I know that there has recently been new data — I do not know the codes — in relation to non-attendance at school. That could be looked at. It is not reported to DE or EA, as far as I am aware.

Ms Hunter: OK. There is room for improvement there. That is grand. I can follow up personally on that.

Ms Craig: My view is that, if we are doing that, it should not just be for our children with special educational needs; it should be across the board.

Dr Adell: If it is an unregulated change to the timetable, it is unregulated. It will be hard for the EA to be involved in school-based decisions. Schools have a lot of independence in Northern Ireland. They make choices about the children and how they deliver education.

Ms Hunter: Do you think that that is a good thing? Is it positively contributing to the education of children, particularly SEN children? Do you like it that schools have additional freedoms? Do you think that there is remit for exploring further when it comes to reduced timetables?

Dr Adell: That is a very political question, and it would be dangerous for me to answer it. In other education systems that have full control, there are other problems. It is not that one system is better than another; it is about how we want to run our system. That is a wholly political decision, and it would be completely inappropriate for me to comment on it.

Ms Hunter: OK. Thank you very much.

Mrs Mason: Thanks very much for coming into us. In the previous evidence session, there was a line in the presentation about the right support, which said:

Tomas, you have outlined that, but it is something that we have heard today from the community and voluntary sector. We have also heard it from schools and special educational needs coordinators (SENCOs). How are you going to get that trust? You are talking today about the possible removal of one-to-one support in certain circumstances. There might be people who agree with that concept, but, at the moment, parents regard that one-to-one support as wrap-around care. They might be medically supporting the child, providing literacy support or providing all of that. How are you going to get the trust that you talk about and bridge that gap?

Dr Adell: If it was simple, we would not be sitting here, because it would be done. It is incredibly difficult to get that trust. First, nothing that we are doing involves removing one-to-one support. We are looking at how best we support our children. That might be through one-to-one support or it might be through some other type of support. It is not about removing one-to-one support — that is a really important point — nor is it about removing professional groups; instead, it is about ensuring that we provide support for the child in the best way.

Mrs Mason: Tomas, in reality, there will be cases in which there was one-to-one support but will now no longer be. I understand the concept of providing additional support, but the reality is that it will not be one-to-one.

Dr Adell: I am not disagreeing with that. We are not, however, talking about a wholesale removal of one-to-one support, which would be wrong. It is about showing where it works. Currently, 100 to 150 schools already do things differently and, in general, that is working really well. The parents are supported, and the children are flourishing. It is about showing those examples and showing others that it is not about what I or the EA think; it is about how the parents, principals and teachers see their children doing much better. That is the real exciting story.

I have been travelling to schools and seeing as many as I can. I have not been in post that long, so I have not got that far yet, but they are all telling me that they want to do things differently because they can do so much more for their children. When we speak to our community and voluntary sector, we say the same thing: it is about coming together and saying, "This is not about the 'evil' EA; it is actually about what is best for our children". Parents will not trust me, but they might trust other parents who have experienced it. They will trust teachers more than they will trust me, and they will trust the charities, because it is about working together to come up with models. That is how we can build that trust.

Mrs Mason: Can that be done without the involvement of Health?

Dr Adell: No, of course not. Health is a key actor. A support model looks at the needs of the child, which means that Health people will be involved in it. Some really obvious ones are speech and language therapists, social workers and occupational therapists. There will be psychology involved too. I have probably missed a few, but that is the concept. Absolutely, there is no debate about Health being involved.

Mrs Mason: That is what I mean. That sounds fantastic and sounds like the wrap-around support that a child needs, but it is not the reality at the moment. How do we get to the point at which that is the reality? There is a suspicion out there — and I am trying to be straight with you — that the SEN reform plan is an attempt to push everything onto schools whilst pulling away resources and one-to-one support. I am just relaying the suspicions that are out there.

Dr Adell: I hear what you say, and I understand that suspicion. That is not what we are trying to do. We want to create local freedoms for schools, so that they can find a way to support their children that suits their children best. The best form of support differs from area to area and from setting to setting. How can a school meet the needs of its children in the best way possible? How do we get over that? By working with the people who will be delivering the services — schools — and including charities and other statutory bodies, such as Health, the Autism Reviewer and the Children's Commissioner, and involving parents the whole way through the process. We need to use the experience of parents who have gone through different circumstances and critical friends from other jurisdictions who do things differently and can answer the difficult questions. That is the only way that we can bring confidence. It is about working with the Committee and others to show that we are genuinely trying to do something exciting that is better for children. We can then argue about the details of that, and I am sure that we will do so many times.

We are at the very early stages. We want to look at building a solid evidence base so that we can show the needs. There are ways that we can do that. We can play around with our existing statements. Education scholars report that the statements are good at saying what children's needs are. Let us use the knowledge that we have and build up a bigger understanding of the needs of all our children with statements now, because that will show us what a broad model could look like.

Bring us back in mid-February. We hope that we could talk to you then about that kind of evidence base, because the answer should be much clearer. At the moment, it is very hypothetical. I do not want to hide anything from you, so that is why I say that it is hypothetical. Bring us back in February, and we can talk about the evidence that we have found from the statements that we have.

The Chairperson (Mr Mathison): Just a brief final comment, please.

Mrs Mason: I appreciate that, but you mentioned charities, Health and lots of other organisations. However, schools and parents are looking at what the EA provides for them. That is why I said that there is a suspicion that some resources are being pulled away and reform is being put back on the schools without giving them the resources to do it. In my experience, schools will step up to the plate, and they want to provide the best for their children, but they need support to do that, and they do not feel that they have it at the moment.

Dr Adell: I am not questioning that. We will build up that support for them and with them. We are looking at other things. When we were at Committee two weeks ago, we mentioned —

The Chairperson (Mr Mathison): I ask for a brief answer, Tomas.

Dr Adell: Yes, sorry. We mentioned that we were looking at support packages for schools for SENCO release and administration. We have to work out exactly what those packages will be and how much we can do with our budget, but we will do something. It might not be perfect, but it is a gesture that shows that we are moving in the right direction.

Ms Craig: May I add to that, Chair?

The Chairperson (Mr Mathison): Yes, but please be brief.

Ms Craig: I will be brief, I promise. We have, arguably, stymied schools by only having one model of support. Many schools cannot recruit, which means that there are hours of support that children are not getting. There are 150 schools doing something different, but that happened organically, because they wanted to try something different. There will be trust when we provide evidence on what works, and we do not have that evidence yet.

Mr Baker: Thank you. I will start off with reduced timetables. That issue was raised in the previous session, and Cara has touched on it in this session. It could be argued that reduced timetables are unlawful. I argue that you have not got a handle on the number of children who are on reduced timetables. In many cases, children with special educational needs are not placed in the right settings and end up on reduced timetables, but nobody really is paying much attention to that. What is your view on that?

Dr Adell: I cannot answer you on whether it is unlawful. I will have to come back to you on that. I do not want to say anything that is incorrect.

Ms Craig: I know that Tracey will want to come in on that.

Ms Logan: I have already made the point about appropriate placements. For children at school, there is the annual review as a mechanism. It does not have to happen in March every year; we can bring it forward. If a child is struggling in school, that mechanism is there to bring the issues forward and look at them to see what the difficulties are and what we can do to address them. We can bring other services in. Is the problem the placement? Do they need a different type of support? With schools, we have been looking at changing the model of support in them. It is not always about changing placements, but sometimes it might be. That mechanism is there, however. It is not that concerns have gone unheard.

Mr Baker: How many children are on reduced timetables right now?

Ms Logan: A reduced timetable is often a school decision. I certainly do not support reduced timetables.

Mr Baker: If you do not place a child in the right setting, you put the burden on the school. It is then forced to put a child on a reduced timetable, because the support is not there. The child then ends up on a reduced timetable.

Ms Logan: A reduced timetable could be part of an integration plan. We see that happening with our nursery and P1 children as they come in. There are children for whom a full school day is not appropriate. That is a decision for the school. It will decide on that. It could be part of an integration programme to get them back into the classroom.

It could be part of an integration programme into another placement, if that is appropriate, depending on what comes out of the annual review. There is no requirement at the moment to record that. I am not disagreeing with you, Danny, or saying that we should not have that, but schools are not asked routinely to record it. Until we have something about that, schools will not routinely provide it to us.

Mr Baker: You started your evidence today by saying that you want to build parents' confidence. I do not have confidence in the EA on this, because what I experience and what the families who come to my constituency office for help say is completely different from what I hear from the EA when it comes in, and that is just one example. There are children sitting at home. I will give you the example of a case that I have just finished with because, thankfully, the child is back in school after nearly two and a half years of just sitting there. It took interventions and, again, working alongside link officers, and we eventually got there, but that is happening across the board in the North, and there is no handle on it. One of the key themes in my constituency office is children being placed without the right support, and it is a numbers game to get a child off the books. A child who should be in a special school is not placed in one, or a child who should be in SPiMS is put into a mainstream classroom. There are just not enough places, and that is why children end up out of education.

Ms Logan: Are annual reviews being called? Are we being involved in that? Are we taking that process through?

Mr Baker: There are reviews, but the numbers are high —

Ms Logan: I am not sure that the number is as high as you say.

Mr Baker: — and you cannot tell me how many children in the North are on reduced timetables. That, straight away, is a problem. You should have a handle on that. You should know how many children are not getting a full day's education.

Dr Adell: We have to look at the roles and functions of the EA. Some things are not within its roles and functions, because schools have delegated authority to deliver classes.

Mr Baker: You place the children.

Dr Adell: We place the children. If the placement is not working and we have to respond, the annual review is the response mechanism for us to deal with that. Schools have independence to provide children with education in their setting. The consequences of that independence, which are good in some ways, also mean that it is sometimes hard to monitor and regulate some aspects.

Mr Baker: Let me ask a different way, then. Of the 75 children mentioned —

The Chairperson (Mr Mathison): This should be either a quick question or a final comment.

Mr Baker: — in your answer to Cara who are outside the time frame how many are not on full timetables?

Ms Logan: They are all in school. They are all going through statutory assessment.

Mr Baker: Do you know how many of them are on reduced timetables?

Ms Logan: I do not know all 75 children, Danny — I am not going to have that detail — but they are the responsibility of the schools. That is a delegated responsibility while they are going through statutory assessment. They are over the 26 weeks, but there could be valid exceptions, such as advice being late or the school being closed, for example, over the summer. However, that is not an answer to the question that you are really asking. You are asking about the number of children who are on a reduced timetable who have a statement and are trying to integrate back into school. It is a delegated responsibility of schools. We have to listen to the children who are at the centre of this. A lot of those children are not able to be in the setting for the full school day. Every piece of legislation — I will take you back to the Education and Libraries (Northern Ireland) Order 1986, where we talk about the child's best interest, and we have to take that —.

Mr Baker: The child's best interest is not being met in any of the cases that I represent. Not even close.

The Chairperson (Mr Mathison): Final comment, Tracey.

Ms Logan: I do not know what numbers you have, Danny. I have 34,000, but I do not have the numbers that you have.

Mr Baker: Children are being failed. That is my point, and I do not hear anything different any time you come in.

Mr Burrows: Thanks for the briefing. I want to get down to a couple of specific cases, because when the rubber hits the road, what does it look like for children with special educational needs in school? One of the most important special schools is Sandelford School in Coleraine. It is a strategic asset for the provision of special educational needs in the north-west. It has had a few problems with its buildings that were in the news this week. Has the EA managed to get back to the school? What is the current situation?

Dr Adell: We cannot answer questions about the buildings today. We will happily provide a written briefing on school estates, but we are here to talk about the statutory assessment process. Sorry, Jon: we are not prepared for those questions today.

The Chairperson (Mr Mathison): I note that there is correspondence about Sandelford in our pack. That might provide the Committee with an opportunity to agree formal correspondence on that and attribute to it the urgency that is required. I agree, Jon, that it is a serious issue.

Mr Burrows: OK, I will move on.

Ms Craig: Sorry, Jon, my understanding is that the school is open to all children.

Mr Burrows: No, I got that. It has been described to me as the children sitting there with buckets while water drips from the roof into the buckets etc. We need to get clarification on that and on what actions have been taken.

The second thing is that a teacher recently told me about a mainstream school with a classroom of 35 children, a majority of whom possess a statement of special educational needs. I am not talking about the exponential rise in statements, but what is the sustainability of a teacher trying to manage a class of 35 in which the majority have special educational needs statements? Is that asking too much of teachers?

Dr Adell: I will answer that question differently, because we need to look at that again. There is a support model for schools. How do we best provide support for the children, and how do we best provide that support for schools to provide the support for those children? It is impossible to answer yes or no to that kind of question. What you describe sounds like a very difficult and challenging position, but, without knowing any details, we cannot possibly answer how we best meet the needs of those children. It is important to note that some children with special educational needs do very well in a large, normal — "normal" is bad language — class and can thrive and develop, and it is really good to have that educational, academic stimulus of other children. For some children, that is not the right thing, so it is impossible to answer that in black and white. What we do need, and what we have said already, is to provide better support for schools to provide better support for children with special educational needs.

Ms Logan: May I just add to that, Jon? I would be concerned if you have a class of 35 where the majority of children have statements of special educational needs, given that the current figure would be around 6% of the school population having a statement of SEN. Perhaps that teacher will want to contact us about that class, because there is something wrong with what is happening there with those children. If you are saying that it is the majority — we are talking maybe 30 or 32 children— with statements in a class of 35, I would like to know and have a conversation with that teacher.

Mr Burrows: Well, a majority could be 18 out of 35, but yes, you make a good point. I will follow that up. I will engage directly.

On this final point, which is a sensitive one — I asked the last witnesses — we have a significant number of primary-school teachers being injured. Again, it is not a reflection — I stress this really explicitly — it is not a judgement on parents; it is not a judgement on children who have special educational needs and who, at the end of the day, are vulnerable. However, we have primary-school teachers, particularly P1 and P2, getting injured. I have asked for the statistics, and they have risen. They are significant for kicks, bites and being spat at. What is the plan for reducing those injuries?

Ms Craig: The most significant rise in adults and children with injuries has been in our special schools. We have put a protocol in place with all of our special schools, and, if there are significant concerns in relation to a young person, they will contact the EA and there will be a meeting set up within 24 hours to help us and them and colleagues in Health — they are always involved in those meetings — to action-plan and make sure that the child continues to receive an education but everybody is kept as safe as possible.

There have been a number of things in our primary schools. The first thing, which has been rolled out across all of the trust areas, is a programme called Better Together, with Health colleagues and Behaviour Support Service, which is now part of the local impact teams. More recently, the SSST — or the Specialist Provisions Service (SPS) — sorry, there is a change of names and I am struggling myself — is also providing support, particularly where there are new specialist provisions in place. That will include Team Teach, which is the de-escalation techniques, and our services.

Mr Burrows: Just to pause there: is Team Teach currently being trained to teachers in mainstream schools that have special educational needs, or is that a future thing?

Ms Craig: That is a future thing —

The Chairperson (Mr Mathison): I ask for a brief response.

Ms Craig: — but it is with our Specialist Provisions Service. That is being looked into by our specialist provisions for special and early primary school. There will need to be a business case for that, Jon, because obviously there is a cost along with it. That training is already available to our special schools as it stands. Bear that in mind: we still have the increase.

The Chairperson (Mr Mathison): Final comments.

Mr Burrows: I just want to put on the record that you mentioned a business case. In my view, under health and safety, it is simply an obligation to provide the training, equipment and support necessary to do your job safely. It is a legal obligation to provide Team Teach or its equivalent to teachers in mainstream schools providing special education needs provision. That is my view.

Ms Craig: Can I answer that?

The Chairperson (Mr Mathison): Yes, and then we will have to bring this enquiry to an end.

Ms Craig: Training is available to all schools in de-escalation techniques, and that is where we want the focus to be. The last thing that we want to do is to lay hands on children, so we want to make sure that the staff who support children and young people are equipped with those quality de-escalation techniques. However, it is not just about training staff; it is making sure that our schools and our accommodation — everything — is right for children and young people in schools. We are not there yet.

Mr Burrows: Sensory rooms etc. I agree with you entirely. Thank you.

Mrs Guy: Thanks, folks, for your evidence so far. I will ask about the statementing process. I got a bit of feedback that there is some confusion on the role of the educational psychologists now, and people would like some clarity on why that role has changed and how we will measure the effectiveness of any changes around that.

Ms Craig: Do you mean in terms of the consultative role?

Mrs Guy: With statementing in general.

Ms Craig: Yes. Psychologists provide the assessment, so we rely on educational psychologists to find out what is the SEN and what provision needs to be put in place. They are part of the statutory assessment process. Tracey can probably tell you more about the different advice that comes from anybody who is involved with the child, all those other professionals and, crucially, the parent. Psychologists will always be involved in that assessment process.

Mrs Guy: I guess it is about how the role has changed.

Ms Logan: I will pick up on that. It is really about the consultative model that they use now. Psychologists were very much the gatekeepers for all the referrals through to pupil support services. Back in 2018, when I was part of the SEN team, we did the SENCO audit, and the feedback that we got at that stage was that psychologists were rubber-stamping lots of what we already know about the children in our schools and what their needs were. That is one of the things that we took back, so psychology is no longer that gatekeeper. Psychologists are part of the local impact teams, but there is now that consultative model in schools. The graduated response is there. We have been training on that and working with schools on it. We get a really positive response. I know that, sometimes, we get a lot of negative feedback on the SENCOs, but we have a full team of seconded SENCOs who are out working in schools. We have had something like 800 responses on the evaluations of that graduated response. We are training on them and training schools on what the psychology model is and where they fit into that process, making that request for involvement and for statutory assessment and how we are demonstrating that graduated response and how that is coming through. That is where the change in the role is.

Psychologists are still there; they have not gone away. There can still be a request for them, and they may well still see children, assess them and make recommendations. They will still refer children for statutory assessment in the early years. However, their role in schools is different to allow them to operate a different model of support in schools.

Mrs Guy: How are we going to monitor whether that has been successful? Psychologists bring a particular expertise to the process, in terms of the statementing and the recommendations.

Ms Logan: They are still a part of it, so, once we get the request —. They are just not going to gatekeep to the local impact teams. That is the change for psychologists in that. Their input to the statutory assessment process has not changed in any way. They are still a statutory advice giver. The minute that we decide that we are going ahead with statutory assessment, we seek their advice.

Mrs Guy: Annual reviews are a really important part of this process. They have been mentioned a wee bit today. How confident are we that those are happening, and happening effectively? Again, how are we measuring that that is happening and is effective for the kids?

Ms Logan: Back in 2022, we introduced the annual reporting through EA Connect. That first year was very much a test of the system. Not everybody had to do it; it was not mandatory. As of last September, it was mandatory, so we know the numbers that are coming through. We can see if they are scheduled, how we are working through those, and the data is all there in the annual reviews. We can ask for it now, and we can get you data if you require it.

Mrs Guy: Thank you. At our session at the stakeholder event, there was a bit of chat around that, with people not feeling confident.

Ms Logan: There was a little bit of confusion about the choices that schools were making on the selection. There was a drop-down selection, and change of placement was there for children who do require a change, but then there was a selection for transfer. We have made that an awful lot clearer for this year. We have worked with Education Information Solutions (EdIS) to do that, and that was all explained in the letter that went out to schools at the end of September. There is lots of guidance on the EA website, should schools have difficulty with it. The SEND team also runs clusters on that, so, if there are difficulties, we can do that.

Mrs Guy: Correct me if I am wrong, but some of the feedback that we got on the day of the event was that those reviews were happening and SENCOs were putting in their recommendations and signing them off, but they were never formally being —.

Dr Adell: If the support offer is fairly static, the need for review and the meaningfulness of a review is less than if the support offer is more meaningful in the first place. With a support offer that looks at the needs of the child, having continuous assessment of the needs of the child becomes more important, and it then becomes easier for everyone to engage more wholly in the process. If it actually makes a change to provide better support for the child, it is then in everyone's interest to do the review really well. That is not the place of the support offer at this point.

Ms Logan: I agree.

Dr Adell: Until we change that, it is hard to get the full commitment to do this really appropriately. If we have this offer now and that offer afterwards, quite often it becomes a tick-box exercise.

Ms Logan: We have over 34,000 children —.

The Chairperson (Mr Mathison): Briefly, to finish, Tracey. Thank you.

Ms Logan: Very briefly, yes. We have over 34,000 children with statements. We have those every year for annual reviews. About 5,000 of those will be transfer reviews every year, and that is basically the same process: amending statements, consultation. A lot of the remaining almost 30,000 have no change, and I kind of disagree. Are we not doing things correctly? Why do we have so many as "no change"? If we develop the service the way that we want to develop the service, we will get time to look at those and really delve into the child's objectives in their statement, the expected outcomes in their PLPs and how we review those. There is a big piece of work around annual reviews. I could talk about it all day, but we will maybe pick it up another time.

Mrs Guy: Thank you both.

The Chairperson (Mr Mathison): I have no other indications.

I want to pick up one thing on educational psychologists from Michelle's question. There is no rule in terms of the statutory evidence-giving role of an educational psychologist, but I hear a bit of uncertainty from SENCOs about who makes the recommendation that a child moves forward for a statutory assessment. That used to sit comfortably with educational psychologists and everyone knew where they were, and I think that there is a wee bit of anxiety among SENCOs that perhaps they are not convinced that their professional judgement will be trusted. Is it their call, or is there some other mechanism to make sure that the kids who need to go forward will go forward? How will that be addressed? I have been asking everybody else to be brief, so I ask you to be brief. That is a point that has been raised.

Ms Logan: It really is about the embedding of that graduated response, and it really is about giving ownership back to schools and letting us see what they are doing. The local impact teams will also be involved in any of those reports as well. For those children who are coming through and who have maybe had interventions from local impact teams from schools, we will be looking at that. We hope to have a multidisciplinary team around that, with psychology as part and parcel of that. Psychologists work with us weekly as well. We get about 120 requests for statutory educational psychology every week, which we consider every week, and we go through a very robust decision-making process on a weekly basis. Every Friday morning is the highlight of our week, where one of the principal educational psychologists and one of the senior advisers, or me, or the head of the psychology service will look at those decisions. They have input into that, looking at the evidence that schools are providing — largely what the SENCOs are providing — and what they have detailed.

The Chairperson (Mr Mathison): Essentially, it is not inaccurate to say that this now has shifted more to schools to make those requests.

Ms Logan: They will have to make the request. Schools always had to make the request.

The Chairperson (Mr Mathison): I understand that, but there was a sense that maybe the educational psychologist said, "Yeah, that will do".

Ms Logan: It was a rubber stamp thing.

The Chairperson (Mr Mathison): Yes. They said, "We're going to rubber-stamp this if you put this through".

Dr Adell: Essentially, it is about trusting the schools and their professional skills.

The Chairperson (Mr Mathison): When I am next out with a SENCO, and they ask that question, I can say that there is professional trust in the system, and that is what you are trying to build in.

Ms Logan: How could we argue with a SENCO who refers in line with a graduated response framework? We can clearly see that coming through in the statutory requests. I will mention the statutory assessment process, because everyone talks about the statementing process, and it is definitely not the statutory assessment. We see the graduated response being very clearly demonstrated, and it is encouraging when I see that information coming through and look at the responses the SENCOs have had to the training that they receive. It is very positive.

Ms Craig: Can I say something further to that?

The Chairperson (Mr Mathison): A very final point.

Ms Craig: Yes, assessment is a function of educational psychology, but so are training and research. We need to think about that, and the educational psychologists are keen to move forward on more strategic work about emotionally based school non-attendance and also helping and supporting our special schools, which deal with the children with the most complex needs. It is hugely important that they take that work forward as well.

The Chairperson (Mr Mathison): I recently met the Association of Educational Psychologists (AEP), and it seemed excited about some of the pilot work, particularly on the emotionally based school non-attendance. The AEP seemed quite excited about the prospects for broadening out the role. It would be good to get the sense that the system is feeling that. On a positive note, SENCOs have a lot of concerns at the moment, but generally they speak very positively about their relationship with their educational psychologist. Almost without exception, they value that relationship and think it works well, and it is important to note that.

Thank you for your time. We have EA officials before the Committee next week, so we can pick up next week with local impact teams, which, I am sure, will be fun and games. Thank you all for your time.