Official Report: Minutes of Evidence

The Chairperson (Mr Mathison): We welcome back Dr Tomas Adell, chief transformation officer in the Education Authority (EA); Gillian Cuthbert, interim assistant director for SEND support and local impact teams (LITs) in the EA; and Ursula Garvey, assistant senior education officer in the local impact teams in the EA. If I have got any job titles wrong, please correct me. You are all very welcome today. As is normal format — you will be getting used to this, Tomas, because you have been here a fair bit over the past while — I will hand over to you for an initial presentation of up to 10 minutes, and then we will move into questions and answers, aiming to keep it to around five minutes per enquiry from each member so that we can get through the evidence session. Over to you.

Dr Tomas Adell (Education Authority): Thank you very much. It is good to be back here. I quite enjoy it, so it is good. [Laughter.]

Mr Sheehan: That raises a question mark over you. [Laughter.]

Dr Adell: It is important to have disagreements because that is the only way that we can improve. That is my starting point.

Anyway, it is great to talk about local impact teams today, which, for ease, I will call LITs. You received a very comprehensive briefing from us. We do not see any reason for holding anything back from you, so hopefully everything that we have provided will be helpful. To keep things short, I will not rehearse what is in the briefing, but there are three things that I want to highlight.

The first is about the staff in the Education Authority and the staff who are delivering the services on the ground — the LIT staff and other support staff. Those people are highly skilled and dedicated to improving the outcomes for children and young people with SEN. Every day, they go to work with one aim: to help children with SEN. I want to give them praise and thank them for the good work that they do. They make a difference in children's lives every single day. With that in mind, I urge caution when we talk about LITs during our discussion today. Quite often, we talk about LITs as though they are bad, or that is what comes out. Those staff take that personally. They fight for our children. I am sure that that is not the intention, but that is how what is said is received. I want to be really clear that we talk about services, not about the people who work in those services, and about how structures and systems can improve, rather than individual people doing bad jobs. I am sure that you all agree with me on that; I just wanted to put it on the record from our side.

I recognise that the EA has not always got it right. We are not perfect in any way, shape or form. It is right to criticise what we do as a system, but please make sure that that negative criticism is about the EA's organisational system, rather than being against the staff. Two things can be true at the same time. On the one hand, SEN provision undoubtedly needs to expand and improve. We know that past and present shortcomings have created deep frustration and dissatisfaction among parents and schools. I do not disagree with that. On the other hand, the EA and its staff are striving to make improvements and have good outcomes for children against a very difficult budgetary background. The reality is that many of those improvements cannot be delivered by us — we require support from others — and we cannot do them quickly.

It is necessary and right for us to be held to account robustly. All that I am saying is that sweeping and simplistic condemnation is neither fair nor accurate. We fight for children every single day, even when we are up here. There are much easier jobs that I could do than sitting here, arguing about changes that we need to bring through in the EA. I am sure that we all agree on that, but it would be really good if you could bear that in mind as we talk.

The second thing that I want to highlight relates to LITs, which went live on 15 September. The change represents one of the largest changes in SEN delivery in Northern Ireland in a very long time. Services prior to LITs were not designed to allow our great staff to deliver the best outcomes possible. There were eight siloed services, children had to be referred within the services, different services had different paperwork, and there were 39 different phone numbers. Educational psychologists acted as artificial gatekeepers for no reason other than that is what was always done. There was confusion over geographical boundaries and a lack of links to health services; there were fragmented and inconsistent support approaches; there was a lack of governance and oversight; and there was no real understanding of the outcomes, of what worked, or of how we could share good work with other places. We relied on strict criteria for diagnosis and support. In short, the services did not provide the best outcomes for children and young people.

The LITs create a system that wraps around every child and young person. They are integrated, multi-specialist teams, with a central contact point. We now also have governance arrangements to ensure consistency in service and an ability to show outcomes. We can show what works, which means that we can identify how we can improve services.

We have no problem with accepting that LITs are not perfect. However, we are only two months in. We will continue to improve. As I have said before, I am more than happy to look at any examples of where we are not perfect. We want to improve. However, most of the comments that I get from our staff, special educational needs coordinators (SENCOs) and parents are positive. That contradictory messaging is difficult for me to handle; I want to improve, but I cannot improve if I do not know where to improve. My team and I are engaging actively with trade unions. I sent them a letter about 45 minutes ago, asking for a large meeting as soon as possible to make sure that we deal with all of the issues that we have. That is the appropriate mechanism by which to deal with some of those issues. There has been ongoing engagement with trade unions for a long time, and we want to continue that.

The third thing that I highlight is about money and the capacity of LITs. The core problem with LITs and the previous statutory services is one of capacity. The number of children at stage 2 is increasing, but the number of children we can see is not because funding is flat. That means that the proportion of children we see at stage 2 is reducing, even though the capacity is not reducing. That is a challenging context, and it is due to finances. My forecast spend on LITs this year — it depends on staffing — is approximately £24 million. My forecast for SEN overall is about £691 million, in which I have a deficit of about £73 million. LITs represent about 3·5% of my spend. It is really hard to expand that service when I have that deficit. We know that LITs are the right thing for children. We know that doing services at stage 2, rather than at stage 3, provides better outcomes for children. Therefore, we need to find ways in which to readjust how we spend money and move services that we provide from stage 3 to stage 2. That will provide better outcomes for children. It is not about cutting somewhere else; it is about making sure that we get the best value for money. That is really tricky for us to do, but that is a problem that we are trying to solve.

I stress that there is no conflict between us and the Department on this issue. The Department is fully supportive of what we are doing. Since starting in EA, the engagement that I have had with the Department has been very constructive, and we are on the same page. We know that we need a shift in the existing resources at stage 2, and we know that we need to examine stage-2 services to provide support for children when they need it, where they need it and at a time that they need it. Our ambition for LITs is to have them provide a child-centred service where we focus on the outcomes for children and young people with SEN to facilitate early intervention and quick access when they need it. Thank you very much

The Chairperson (Mr Mathison): Thank you, Tomas. On your first point, I am comfortable to speak for the Committee. I do not think that there has ever been an attempt by the Committee to pinpoint individual staff members in the LITs. Looking back to when we talked about other roles such as SEN link officers, we understand the level of pressure that staff in the EA face. Often, when we hit crisis points such as at placement time and when we are scrambling for places over summer periods, it is EA staff who are bearing a huge amount of that pressure. We do understand that. It is welcome to hear you say that it is absolutely appropriate that the Committee looks at the system-level issues and the issues in EA as an organisation that might be driving some of the problems.

Mr Sheehan: Can I come in, Chair?

The Chairperson (Mr Mathison): Yes.

Mr Sheehan: Any criticisms that we have made have been at a systemic level. None of our criticisms is directed towards individuals, individual LITs or anything like that.

Dr Adell: I know that that will not have been the intention, but that is how it has been felt by my staff, so I wanted to highlight that.

The Chairperson (Mr Mathison): It is good to get that on the record, and that is absolutely fine.

I will make a start with questions, and I ask members to indicate through the Committee Clerk if they want to ask any.

I do not think that any member of the Committee would claim to speak for all schools or all SENCOs or say that every bit information that we get reflects everybody's perspective, but there is a common theme that comes through. I will start on a positive. I hear broad acceptance that the new model has a lot of positives. There is the removal of the educational psychologist gatekeeping role. There is also the — in theory — single referral point for involvement, although I might come to that because there is a bit of dispute about whether it is single or not. There is, however, in theory, that dedicated contact person in the LITs. In addition, there is a child's-needs-led approach rather than a diagnosis-based approach. There are lots of positive things coming back to me on the new model from schools and SENCOs and from school leaders who feel that it offers a way forward, but I do not think that we can ignore the fact that there is, as you have referenced, a lack of confidence. There is a lack of confidence in how it is being rolled out.

I hear concerns that the LITs feel under-resourced. They do not feel well enough resourced to deliver what they need to do. You mentioned a flat budget and rising need, which is not a good position to be in. SENCOs in particular are not feeling a reduction in workload. In some cases, they feel that it is ramping up their workload. Critically, there is a feeling that the right support does not always flow when they are making referrals through the request for involvement (RFI) portal. When the support does come through, it sometimes feels a bit like schools are being told, "We need more evidence. We need more time. You need to gather more. We need to work on more plans". In such cases, schools feel that they may have exhausted their options. The two things are a counterpoint to each other. Given that, there is a broad sense that people want this to work but a sense that there is a lack of confidence in the system as it operates right now. How do you respond to those concerns and what assurances can you give that, over the course of this academic year — it needs to be this academic year if we are going to build confidence — schools will feel that positive change and that, crucially, the right support will flow to children at the point that they need it?

Dr Adell: I will hand over to Gillian in a second, but, first, I want to say that we fully recognise the pressures on SENCOs and schools. I am not doubting that for a second. The problem with a service that has a limited capacity and a demand for an increase in its capacity is that we cannot provide a service to all of the children who need it. That is simple maths. It does not add up. Therefore, SENCOs will be frustrated in cases where there are children who they think meet the threshold for the stage-2 service but might not receive the support that they think is right because we have to put in barriers or thresholds — whatever language you want to use — to make sure that only the ones at the top of the band get the service. That is because we have limited capacity. If we can see a certain number of children and a larger number are referred for the service, we can still only see the lower number of children.

I do not have the funding to expand capacity. That will not be quick fix: it will take time, because it means having to reprofile our spend. That is difficult to do when you have a deficit of over £70 million.

The Chairperson (Mr Mathison): What is the resource gap, then, between people and the budget that you need for the model to work as you would like to see it working?

Ms Gillian Cuthbert (Education Authority): On the people resource, we have the normal, business-as-usual posts that come throughout the year, which are fluid, and we make sure that we appoint to them. An additional 24 posts have gone into different service areas, but particularly in behaviour and autism because, as you can see, that is our area of greatest need. The baseline is about making sure that every single LIT has representation in every single SEN category. The majority of cases are in behaviour and autism and there are 24 additional posts at the moment to which people will be recruited. We need approximately another 24 posts for further alignment in order to make sure that we have that SEN category representation.

I want to reassure the Committee that we are working with the 28 local impact teams but there are geographical variances in referrals, so we are using staff from across LITs. There is cross-working: the system allows us to do that, so we are maximising that opportunity. That is a move away from the team-around-the-child and team-around-the-school approaches, but the important thing for us is to make sure that the support goes to children and young people.

The Chairperson (Mr Mathison): So, there are 24 posts out for recruitment now, but there are potentially another 24. We are in and around a ballpark figure of another 24 that might be needed.

Ms Cuthbert: To get the bare minimum, yes.

The Chairperson (Mr Mathison): What is the monetary resource gap?

Dr Adell: That is a really difficult question to answer. If we open the service up to the people whom we want to offer it to, we will most likely find an unmet need. Children are not being referred when they should be referred, because SENCOs know there is no point in doing so. There will be a significant increase; we are not talking about one or two posts. We are talking about recruitment of the scale that you mentioned and on a number of occasions. We can only expand so much; if we doubled the budget tomorrow, we would not have a good service. The service cannot grow that quickly. We must grow but there is not a quick fix. If I could magically fix this on the spot, I would, but I cannot. We have those 24 posts that are out for recruitment, and we will go for another 24 posts as soon as we can after that. Then, we will have to continue increasing recruitment.

The Chairperson (Mr Mathison): OK. Can an assurance be given that, when we reach June and schools are looking back over the year that they have had, they will say, "That was a year when we saw improvement in the support that came into our school for children with SEN, particularly at stage 2"?

Dr Adell: I cannot promise that the school will feel that way. We can show that we are increasing our staffing numbers in order to see more children. We can show evidence of that. The reality is that some schools will not have the support that they should have, simply because we do not have capacity to provide it. That will be the reality in the summer as well.

The Chairperson (Mr Mathison): I want to pick up on a couple of other things. One of them is about the pathways around LITs. There seems to be a model of pathways — pathways 1, 2 and 3 — where children will sit, which is separate to the code of practice stages. There are pathways within the LIT engagement. There seems to be some confusion on what exactly happens in each of those pathways and what the thresholds are to get into the relevant pathways and the different levels of support. Is there a job of work to be done on communication with schools and SENCOs so that everybody is clear on exactly how the system works, and where the support kicks in at different stages? You could visit five schools and they will all tell you something different about what happens on each pathway. Is there an acceptance that there is a need to do a communication job on that?

Ms Cuthbert: Just to be clear, in the legacy service areas, we worked across a tiered model of support. The pathways represent a tiered model of support. Those begin, at the very lowest level, with targeted advice. At the moment, of the 2,800 referrals, only approximately 30 have gone through to pathway 1, which is the lowest level of support. That support would have been offered in all our legacy service areas. The pathways increase in the intensity of support that they provide. Pathway 2 operates across the majority of the legacy service areas in which support was provided by going into the classroom, changing the environment and the conditions and carrying out observation and assessment. All those things will happen in pathway 2. The exception is probably the literacy service, which focused on targeted advice and guidance or one-to-one support. That is where we are seeing some of the misinformation in the communication.

We have put out to schools an overview of the support provided by the pathways for September and October and continued training on the graduated response framework. That training, where we went into more detail on the framework, has just finished in primary and post-primary schools and nurseries. Again, ideally, it would have been good to have had the training in term 3, but we have listened to our SENCOs, who said that they wanted some time to embed, because the graduated response initial training was in term 2 last year. We have rolled that training out, and it has definitely clarified a lot. We are working towards building confidence, and we are hearing back from schools that, having been sceptical about pathway 2, are seeing the benefit of having multiple staff in the school who can support an array of children with special educational needs rather than just one child.

The Chairperson (Mr Mathison): OK. The last question from me at this stage is about SENCOs. We have heard evidence from SENCOs at the Committee, and there is a sense that there is a serious issue among that workforce with low morale and an unmanageable workload. If we are going to deliver transformation, the last thing that anybody wants to see is an adversarial relationship between SENCOs and the EA. That would not be in anybody's interest. How will the EA address that low morale? What is being done to ensure that those staff are being properly supported with the time and resources that they need to work within the new system?

Dr Adell: When Dale Hanna, Robbie McGreevy and I were here a number of weeks ago, we talked about support packages for schools with children with SEN. Part of that is about SENCO release and providing funding that will allow schools to backfill SENCO positions. That is one way that we can support SENCOs so that they can find time to do some of their work. We are looking at administrative support for schools with children with SEN to support them in the administration of their admin functions.

We will definitely have a package in place by the start of the next school year. It is tricky with a £70-odd million deficit. The provision is not free: it costs quite a lot of money because we have a lot of SENCOs. It is about finding the right balance. We are looking at what can we do now with the resources that we have. That will not be everything that we want to do, but at least it will be a step in the right direction and will show some intent and good faith from our side. We are working on that right now.

Ms Cuthbert: The role of the SENCO is critical to the support of our children and young people, and we all recognise that. Central to this process has been working alongside our SENCOs to make sure that we are doing it right and that we are getting the RFI model simplified. I have been out visiting and speaking with SENCOs and continue to take their feedback on board. Next, we are going to have a SENCO continuous reference group so that we get the voice of everybody along the entire journey. As we said, this is the starting point, and we want to make sure that we refine the processes. We are already doing that with the RFI, so that we can increase that confidence in partnership working.

The Chairperson (Mr Mathison): I have a comment rather than a question, although you may want to respond. When I am in schools — I visit schools all the time, so I am not just throwing out the odd anecdotal story — SENCOs consistently say to me that they took on the role because they really value working with children, seeing children progress in their educational journey and seeing barriers removed for the children who face them. However, they feel that the vast majority of their role is taken up by paperwork and admin rather than by interactions with children. Do you see that balance being reset so that a SENCO is seen as being a position that involves working to support children rather than being a fairly demanding admin role?

Dr Adell: A very simple answer is that I would not want a teacher to do simple admin. That is not a good use of resources. There is some paperwork that is appropriate for SENCOs to do, especially around the assessments of children and those sorts of things, but we need SENCOs to use their skills and expertise to do what they are best at: being a teacher and working with children with special educational needs. That is their skill, and that is what we need them to do.

Therefore, we need to find ways to reduce paperwork and bureaucracy as much as possible. Bureaucracy is a good thing, because that is how we have evidence for knowing that things work and do not work. That is how we know what is happening. However, we need to get the right level of bureaucracy. It is about finding balance and finding out how we can provide support to SENCOs in schools so that they are not sitting doing the simple paperwork but have administration staff to do that. That is the solution. It sounds very easy to say; it is less easy to do in practice, but it is what we need to get done. It is not our want to bury SENCOs in paperwork. That is not what we want to do.

Ms Ursula Garvey (Education Authority): I will add to that. We had a group of SENCOs involved in devising and developing the request for involvement (RFI) portal. They worked alongside us to ensure that it was replicating, as far as possible, their legacy experience of using the school-based consultation form. Therefore, all the questions on our RFI are mirrored from legacy school-based consultations. We have also removed some. We have also tried to automate as much of the RFI as possible with pre-populated sections. We have worked alongside the SENCOs and listened to their feedback to find out what would streamline the process for them and make it as easy as possible. They have also fed into solutions about the digitisation of different aspects of that to help with their workload.

The Chairperson (Mr Mathison): Obviously, we need to see how that beds into the system. Tomas, you said that you do not want to bury SENCOs in paperwork. I get the sense that that is how they feel, so the Committee will be keeping a very close watch on whether that improves.

Mr Sheehan: Thanks for coming today. Tomas, no system or model is ever perfect, and we are not expecting that, but there are major fault lines in this system. One is the lack of collaboration and cooperation between Health and Education. As long as that fault line exists, this model is going to throw up all sorts of difficulties. Who is going to fix that? When is it going to be fixed?

Dr Adell: I agree with you. If we do not have cooperation between Health and Education, it is unhelpful for everyone. It

for children and young people, and it makes our life much more difficult. I put on record that I fully agree with you.

I am glad that you asked who can fix it rather than who is at fault, because those would get two very different answers. Regarding the fix, in an ideal world, we would have perfect cooperation between services and there would be no problems. The event to celebrate the Children's Services Co-operation Act (Northern Ireland) 2015, which was held by the Children's Law Centre, on Monday, was brilliant. The reality is that the pressures in Health and Education mean that that perfect synchronisation is unlikely to happen by using old and tried mechanisms. You know the saying about trying the same thing over again and expecting a different result being the definition of insanity.

Who can fix it? Put it on us: put it on us to find solutions, but with an understanding that it will take some time. There is no reason why the EA cannot include healthcare as a support service within LITs or, as I said, alternative support models at stage 3. There is no reason why EA cannot employ speech and language therapists, for example. Therefore, put it on us to fix it. Having said that, I have a significant budget deficit, so I need to be smart about how I use my funding to get the best value from that by employing other professionals. Setting up those services will take time, because it will require a completely new process for us, professional accountability, and so on. Those are not simple things. We also want to work in conjunction with professional bodies and trade unions, and so on, so it will take a bit of time. It is definitely on us to fix it. I am not trying to put the blame on someone else. Give me time to get the chance to do it, and do not expect me to fix everything at once, because I will not be able to. Ask me again in June what progress has been made. Realistically, I could not do it tomorrow, even if I wanted to. Give me the time, and, if I have not done more in June, you have the absolute right to have a go at me.

Mr Sheehan: Fair enough.

I want to ask another couple of questions, which, in a sense, are related, but they are specifically about the Irish-medium sector. On the implementation of LITs, the SEN reform agenda states that the Department will:

Given that commitment, how will the EA address the current shortage of bilingual professionals in SEN services? There are a couple of sub-questions from that. Will there be dedicated Irish-medium roles in EA LITs to ensure that that commitment is realised? What steps are being taken to build capacity and expertise in emerging pedagogy, particularly for supporting literacy development in Irish-medium settings?

Dr Adell: I am glad that you asked that question. It is a really important area that we need to get right. However, getting it right is incredibly complex, and we do not have good solutions at this point. I will hand over to Gillian or Ursula in a second, who can talk about it in more detail. I have spoken informally with Irish-medium representatives, and I have a further meeting coming up soon. It is about finding the right solutions. At this point, we are keen not to employ teachers directly, because we would be stealing the teachers that the sector has, which would be wrong. We need to find solutions that are sustainable for the whole sector. That is really important going forward. We want to do it with the Irish-medium sector, rather than working against it, if that makes sense. I will hand over to Gillian or Ursula.

Ms Cuthbert: In addition, we recently released the early literacy and reading assessment toolkit for schools. I have spoken again to the Irish-medium sector. I have created some resource, and I am obviously utilising the resource that I have. We are looking at the creation of an informal assessment toolkit for full immersion at stage 1. Initial discussions have started. I fully recognise that that is where we want to aim. We want to work alongside and in collaboration with the Irish-medium sector to ensure that that support is effective. We also have to realise that we are missing the diagnostic assessments that are needed for the Irish-medium sector. Investment is needed to progress that work to the level that is needed.

Mr Sheehan: There is inequity in the system as well —

The Chairperson (Mr Mathison): A brief final point, Deputy Chair.

Mr Sheehan: — because the literacy inclusion toolkit that you have referenced provides valuable support for pupils in English-language schools from P2 onwards, but, in Irish-medium schools, it only kicks in at primary 4, because that is when children begin to learn English. That is an inequality that needs to be addressed. Do you not agree with that?

Ms Cuthbert: That is exactly what we are doing with the resource that we have. I have managed to secure somebody for three days a week initially to do a scoping piece with the Irish-medium sector in order to look at how we can translate the assessment toolkit at Key Stage 1 for the immersion from P1 to P3 and how we can bring forward the informal assessment side. I highlight the fact that there is still a need for the formal diagnostic side, so we are looking at progressing that. I look forward to updating you the next time that we come here on the progress that we have made.

Mr Sheehan: OK.

Mr Burrows: My first question is about paperwork. Please summarise the steps that you have taken to simplify paperwork. The principals whom I have spoken to — I have gone round a lot of schools — tell me that it is excessive.

Ms Garvey: Sorry, Jon, is that in relation to the request for involvement?

Mr Burrows: Yes.

Ms Garvey: The request for involvement form is based on the school-based consultation that our SENCOs were used to completing when they requested legacy support through educational psychology. The questions in the form mirror what was in the school-based consultation. Those questions are not new; they are the same. We have removed unnecessary questions to reduce it. There are five sections in the request for involvement portal, most of which are automated. Where there is free text, you can cut and paste into that. You can autosave. That was provided at the request of SENCOs, so they can stop and start and come back to the RFI when they have time to finish it. That functionality is there. You also get live, instant updates about the progress of the RFI through the system. Not knowing where your request for support was in the system used to cause frustration. Now you get live updates on your portal. Once you submit your RFI, you get an email copied to you, which you can keep for your school's records or the child's file, whichever system the school has in place. We have worked with SENCOs to refine that over the past six months. As Gillian said, we hope to set up a SENCO reference group so that we continue to get feedback on how we can make further improvements.

Mr Burrows: OK. A SENCO reference group sounds good.

Another common complaint from principals is that LITs staff are working from home rather than school. How many LITs staff are working from home at any one time?

Ms Cuthbert: I have to disagree with that. We are at the start of eight weeks, and caseloads normally come in during September and October. They are lower then, and they start to peak now in November, according to previous data.

The fundamental part behind the local impact team model is to be out providing direct, face-to-face support in schools. Pathways 2 and 3 are done face to face. We will monitor that, especially as caseloads have increased, but the majority of staff are working in schools because there is no reason for them to be at home unless they are doing a piece of work or providing training and support.

Mr Burrows: I am just looking for data on that.

Ms Cuthbert: I do not have that data with me at the minute, but I can give you active, live numbers of caseloads if that helps. That will give you an indication of staff time. Some staff are employed three days a week or two days a week, and it is difficult to aggregate that, but I can give you data on the caseload per individual.

Mr Burrows: I accept that. I am working from home, by the way. I asked the question because I get it from principals. It is about six hours out of a very long week.

I consult principals in advance of meetings, and I collate some of their observations and ask questions on an aggregate of those, so I have two further questions. Some principals are saying to me that the new portals remove their ability to choose which service might be best for the pupil in question. Do you agree that the LITs need to work in partnership with the principals on the ground? Is there an issue of removing discretion?

Ms Cuthbert: The fundamental part of the local impact teams is that it is about having the child at the centre. It is child-needs led. The RFI details the primary need, but what are the actual needs of the child in the context of their school, the graduated response framework and, importantly, their family? When the RFI comes through to moderation, we look at the holistic needs of the child. It is not about pinpointing children and putting them into boxes. We really need to move away from that, particularly with our children with social, emotional and behavioural difficulties. If they are pinpointed down to just a behaviour route, we often do not see beyond the behaviour, which could be along the lines of a literacy need or a developmental language disorder, and, therefore, those children are on the wrong pathway.

When it comes to literacy development, it is fundamental that it is based on a sound knowledge of speech and language skills. Therefore, if a child comes through with a literacy profile, our specialists look at the profile and information and are able to see where the missing blocks are. It may be more important for that child to have the building blocks of speech and language support first, before they move on to literacy. It is a more personalised, tailored approach, rather than going towards an individual, specific legacy area.

Mr Burrows: OK. I will feed that back.

When the rubber hits the road, we are talking about an example, and I asked a question about Sandelford Special School last week and did not get a signal that you wanted to respond to it. Last week, we were told that Sandelford was open again and children were in class. Then, a couple of days later, we were told that the air quality reports were different, and the kids are now out of class and are being schooled at home. I got a call from the EA, because I made some enquiries about it. I have been told that there is a meeting this week, and one of my staff will be at it, to inform the parents —.

The Chairperson (Mr Mathison): Can you get to the question, Jon, because we are nearly out of time here?

Mr Burrows: Can you give me an assurance that everything will be done that possibly can be done to get those kids with special educational needs into Balnamore Primary School so that they are not sitting at home where they are not getting the education that they need?

Dr Adell: The simple answer is, absolutely, yes. That is what we always aim to do. I can clarify that, last week, when the children were allowed back into the school, that was based on expert advice at that point. New expert advice was provided to us on Thursday evening that changed that position. You have to appreciate that we are not building experts, and the people who were here last week were not building experts. Therefore, we are guided by the expert advice that we receive. It was unfortunate that the children were out, then back and then out again, but we have to go by the expert advice that we receive.

Mr Burrows: OK. I am keen to have an update on the date when those children will be out of home and into Balnamore Primary School and then from Balnamore back into Sandelford. That would be really good.

The Chairperson (Mr Mathison): We are due a written response from the EA on that, and we may want to pick up on following that issue up at any other business later.

Mrs Guy: Thanks, folks. Obviously, you passed comment today on your staff. I hope that, in my questions, I have been going in to bat for you. There is huge potential with the LITs, but you are not at all resourced to deliver on that potential. That is a frustration, even today, when you say that the Department is fully supportive. You are not funded; you are not resourced to deliver on it. You are set up to fail, effectively, and that is frustrating to hear, when it could do something really powerful. I do not know whether you agree or are able to agree, but it is also frustrating because it is possibly the single most impactful piece of transformation that is going on in SEN right now, and there is the transformation fund, but it is hardly even touching what you are doing. That fund is not funding the setting up of LITs. Is that right?

Dr Adell: That is right.

Mrs Guy: It seems crazy that we can have that situation.

I want to start my questioning by asking for some clarity. I genuinely want to understand the early years piece. My understanding is that non-statutory early-education settings cannot refer into the LITs. Looking at your briefing, though, I am not as clear that there is some kind of pathway. Can you be clear with me on exactly what the position is for non-statutory early educators and the LITs?

Dr Adell: I will refer the question to Gillian and Ursula, but, to highlight the transformation funding, the Executive transformation fund is time-limited transformation funding. We need recurrent, sustainable funding for the service to work. It is different funding pots, but the aims and objectives are not contradictory, so it is not bad to have that transformation funding. I just want to stress that.

Mrs Guy: OK.

Ms Cuthbert: In relation to early years, non-statutory settings, they can be referred in, but the referral route is different. At the moment, they cannot access the RFIs, due very much to technology and systems. It is also due to the fact that there are differences in the legislation in relation to non-statutory provision and SENCOs etc. There is a greater piece of work to be done in that area. In the preschool standardisation project, I have done costings for how much it would be to do that. Obviously, we want to continue to offer that support, and that support is available, but the route continues as it is. That comes from the child development clinics (CDCs), goes into psychology, and, in psychology, on to the system. Therefore, we are bringing them through on to the system, but it is about the how. When they get on to the other side, the support is exactly the same as what they would have in statutory provision.

Mrs Guy: There are barriers to kids who are in non-statutory settings being able to access that, so there is not equity between non-statutory and statutory as regards their access.

Ms Cuthbert: I agree that there is inequity in the access route at this time, but we are working to try to simplify that as much as we can. As I said, it comes through the child development clinics first, to psychology, and then through to us.

Mrs Guy: Is the piece of work that needs to be done on that becoming more mainstreamed being led through you?

Ms Cuthbert: No. That is the standardisation project —.

Mrs Guy: Is there a timescale for when that might come through? Can you tell us what the quantity of funding is to do that?

Ms Cuthbert: I looked and have done broad figures: we are talking about an amount of about £6 million, but there are other aspects, such as the education information solutions (EdIS) programme , which will be a big part of that and how we bring those systems in. However, it is the employment system within the non-statutory setting that has that challenge, but that is outside of what we do.

Mrs Guy: Thank you; I appreciate that.

When I look at LITs, it seems that what you need to succeed would be to be properly supported in terms of resources and getting your baseline of staff in place, the right expertise in there and that piece with Health. We have already touched on the Health side of it. Again, I am not clear about the commitment from Health and Education to enable you to bring healthcare staff into a truly multidisciplinary offering. Do you have a definite commitment from the top of the organisations that that will happen, or is that still in the air?

Dr Adell: I want to field the question. If we work with Health and ask the same questions, we will probably get the same answers. I am not having a go at Health colleagues. I worked in the Department of Health for many years and value those people very highly. Let us look at trying to find other solutions that will provide different answers. Let us not rely on healthcare for some aspects of LIT support: let us bring it into the EA. To use speech and language therapy as an example, why can we not have a speech and language therapist in the EA, working directly in LITs and providing services to children and young people through us rather than relying on a pressured health system?

Mrs Guy: You touched on that in your answers to Pat. If you could do one thing now in your interactions with Health that would make a difference quickly or easily, what would it be? For example, at our session at the stakeholder event, we talked about data-sharing. What would be the key thing that would make a real impact right now by Health and Education working together better on this?

Dr Adell: Data-sharing would be a quick win. That is probably less about LITs and more about children who have more profound needs. Data-sharing is absolutely a starting point for doing that much more easily. There will be a health and education working group meeting on 9 December, which senior leaders from DE, DOH and the EA will attend.

Mrs Guy: My last —.

The Chairperson (Mr Mathison): A brief final comment, maybe.

Mrs Guy: A lot of the paper mentions there being positive feedback on training. In the context of the outcomes framework, how are you working with the Department to capture how the LITs are working for the kids who are coming through the system so that they get better outcomes?

Dr Adell: Gillian can talk about the details. We have less outcomes data, because the new system is only two months in.

Mrs Guy: That will feed directly into the outcomes framework.

Dr Adell: Gillian, you can talk about how we measure data.

The Chairperson (Mr Mathison): Please answer briefly.

Ms Cuthbert: We have to feed into the outcomes framework what we want, globally, for our children and young people with SEN and how each stream feeds into that. We have built a way of tracking the outcomes into the RFI. It is really important that we track whether the interventions that we are putting in place are effective. We need to track that bit at the beginning, so that we can feed it into asking whether we are providing the right support at the right time and can quantify that with regard to the interventions that we put in place.

Mrs Mason: Before I begin my questions, I need to say something: it is only because of your staff — teachers, SENCOs and classroom assistants — that the system is still going. It is the system that does not work. Your LIT staff are being pushed into the firing line in schools. You need to look at the language that some of your colleagues have used when they have given us evidence, rather than push it onto the Committee.

I have lots of questions that I need to get through.

Dr Adell: I am not saying that this is the Committee's intention —I want to make that clear — but my staff are feeling under attack. I am trying to protect my staff. I am sure that you would agree with that. That is why I brought it up.

Mrs Mason: I think that your staff know that we are trying to fight their corner. I put that on record.

Tomas, at a previous meeting, you said:

Do you stand over that?

Dr Adell: Yes. The number is not reducing. Obviously, there are seasonal variations across the year. That is normal. It happens every year.

Mrs Mason: So, it is increasing. You stand over that.

Dr Adell: No, I said that that would be the effect of LITs.

Mrs Mason: You said:

Dr Adell: Yes. Sure.

Mrs Mason: OK. From my research in a number of areas, I know that literacy teachers used to have between 18 and 21 children a week on their caseload. Now, many of them have only two or three. How do you explain that?

Ms Cuthbert: I can explain that. The legacy literacy model always had a waiting list of approximately 1,400 children every year. If that model were to continue, every September, the waiting list would be a natural feed-in, as it always was, to keep the caseloads between 18 and 20. In September 2024, however, we paused literacy referrals into the service, because we were to redesign the plane whilst flying it. We put resource into reducing the waiting list and brought it down to zero.

We started on 15 September with zero. There were 900, but I will explain. If you look at the legacy data on referrals in the previous literacy model, you see that, in September, October and November, the referral rates were always low. If we start with zero, the referral rates are low. In November or December, once schools are in place and children have been there for eight weeks, the number of referrals dramatically increases. You will see the data that I gave you in the report. In November, the number went up to 305 from 40.

Mrs Mason: There is no data that tells us what it was previously, so we are not able to compare any of that.

Ms Cuthbert: That is what I am saying. Yes, there were caseloads of 18 to 20, but the waiting list was there. The levels of support for those children continued across 16 weeks, with repetition. In September of this year, we started a new system and went to zero, so referrals have been slower to come in.

This time next year, I do not expect to see the same lower level. That is increasing in some cases.

Mrs Mason: Do you expect that their case load will be 18 to 20?

Ms Cuthbert: Yes.

Mrs Mason: Does the lower number of referrals concern you?

Ms Cuthbert: No. That is normal. The trend over the past three years is that referral numbers are dramatically lower in September, October and November, and significantly increase after that.

Mrs Mason: OK.

Dr Adell: Do you want the evidence provided to you in writing afterwards?

Mrs Mason: At the previous session, you said that you would show us the evidence, and I have still not seen it.

Dr Adell: Apologies. We will provide it in writing.

Mrs Mason: You are pushing children into pathway 2 because you do not have any money, and you are pushing that on to schools. For example, I have a teacher with 25 children in her class, and one child is on pathway 2. She has been told to provide support for the child. What does she do with the other 24 children in her class?

Dr Adell: First, we are not pushing children in pathway 2 because —

Mrs Mason: That is what schools are hearing.

Dr Adell: We are saying that we cannot meet all the children with a need. There is a big difference between those two statements. So, —

Mrs Mason: Tomas, that is what schools are hearing. Schools are being told that they need to provide the support with no resource coming alongside it. Yes, they are being told how to provide the support. They know how to provide support, but they need the resource to back that up. What does she do with the other 24 children in the class?

Dr Adell: The unfortunate answer is that if I have the staff to deliver the service to a certain number of children, and that many children have a need, I still cannot provide support for that many children.

Mrs Mason: Is the model that everyone will support the needs of children?

Dr Adell: As I said earlier, we need to shift the funding into the service, because it provides better value for money, better outcomes for children and reduces need further down the line.

Mrs Mason: If you had the resource, the children who are now on pathway 2 would be on pathway 3 and would get the one-to-one support.

Dr Adell: Not necessarily. That is not what I am saying. All the pathways are relevant and right; it is about having a balanced approach to support. Overall, at stage 2, there is not enough resource to deal with all the children who require support. It is an important distinction.

Mrs Mason: Does pathway 2 advise the school but not provide the support to the school?

Dr Adell: Yes.

Mrs Mason: Again, what does the teacher do with the other 24 children in the class? Tomas, I am not a teacher, a SENCO or a classroom assistant, and I cannot understand the pressures they are under, but I listen to them, and I hear that from them. Do you hear that from them?

The Chairperson (Mr Mathison): Can you respond briefly?

Ms Cuthbert: Pathway 2 is more than just advice and guidance; it is about creating pathways and support in the school. Therefore, when a child comes back from one-to-one support or is on pathway 2, we are able to sustain the support. It is not just about one organisation —

Mrs Mason: Who flags the support?

Ms Cuthbert: It is not just about one person giving the support. Collaborative support is needed to meet the needs of children and young people. Again, that has already been in place for autism and behavioural support. There is a different approach for literacy, because it is not about keeping the specialist knowledge in one-to-one support or in a classroom, it is about the spread and leverage and working alongside the teacher and even attending the classroom with them, with the 24 —

Mrs Mason: I have not got an answer about what the teacher is supposed to do with the other 24 children in the class.

The Chairperson (Mr Mathison): Cathy, can you make a final comment.

Mrs Mason: Teachers tell me that they are told to get a classroom assistant to do it. The classroom assistant provides one-to-one support. Gillian, you are shaking your head, but this is what we are being told. Those are real examples.

Ms Cuthbert: Yes.

Mrs Mason: Maybe you need to listen to the real examples.

Ms Cuthbert: I have listened.

Mrs Mason: The classroom assistant provides one-to-one support for another child, so they cannot do it. The teacher can be asked to get another classroom assistant from another class in the school, but they are busy providing one-to-one support for other children. Would you ever stand over a primary 7 student being asked to provide that support?

Ms Cuthbert: Definitely not.

Dr Adell: Absolutely not.

Mrs Mason: Is that a "No"?

The Chairperson (Mr Mathison): Cathy, can you bring that to a close. We are substantially over time on this one. Can you give a final response?

Dr Adell: I will make a brief response, because the answer is much bigger than just LITs. The answer is what we touched on last time: it is about the support for our children with SEN across stage 2 and stage 3. How can we make sure that the schools are properly resourced to provide that support? We need local autonomy to ensure that we have the right support at the right time. That is absolutely classroom assistants, but it is also a wider menu of offerings.

Mrs Mason: There are parents sitting at home whose children are not getting the support that they need. There are children falling through the cracks, and that is what I am concerned about.

Mr Baker: I looked at your presentation and made some notes. It is interesting because it completely contradicts what we have heard in evidence from SENCOs. SENCOs have told us that they constantly feel out of their depth because of the changes and lack of guidance; they feel isolated and that no one understands the enormities and complexities of their role.

According to your submission on feedback:

In evidence taken by the Committee, out of 203 SENCOs, 141 rated the RFI portal as "not so easy" or "extremely difficult", so balance that for me.

Dr Adell: I may ask Ursula or Gillian to speak to that. What I hear when I speak to SENCOs — because I am speaking to school principals as well all the time — is overwhelming support for that model and overwhelming —

Mr Baker: Sorry, but we took evidence at the Committee. The witnesses were speaking for 203 SENCOs, and 141 said that the portal —

The Chairperson (Mr Mathison): Let the witness answer the question, Danny, and then you can come in again.

Dr Adell: I find this really problematic, because if we have problem services, I want to know what they are so that I can fix them. I hear what you are saying, and I saw the session with SENCOs. I want to fix the practical details and the practical problems. The general thing that is difficult is that it is not enough for me to fix the problem. I need to have the details of what it is that we need to fix, what part of the system needs to be fixed. SENCOs had training on the system, and in their feedback afterwards, they told us that it was good training and that they understood the system, so I find that contradiction difficult to deal with.

Mr Baker: I find it difficult because you are saying 98%. I do not know how you are taking that information and data.

Dr Adell: Gillian can answer that question.

Mr Baker: I want to turn to the RFIs because that is what I want to focus on. What percentage of them get accepted first time?

Ms Cuthbert: A total of 93% of referrals that come through from moderation are accepted. Only 7% of RFIs are not accepted through moderation.

Mr Baker: So, first time, it is 93%.

Ms Cuthbert: Yes.

Mr Baker: Some LIT teachers are coming to me saying that they are spending an awful lot of time trying to support schools because they are being rejected.

Ms Cuthbert: That is the benefit of the system. We have robust data now, and from the referrals that we have, 7% have not gone through from moderation. It is not about barriers. The RFI is to provide the information that we need to enable us to look at how we can best meet the needs of children. From your SENCO briefing — I get that point — I added that exact question to the evaluations for their graduated response framework training in relation to the RFI. I need to know that, and I am listening to that feedback. Out of 271 additionals, in response to the same question, out of 244 SENCOs, 67 said that they found it "very easy", and 177 found it "somewhat easy". I do not want any SENCOs to find it difficult. That is why we will continue to work alongside SENCOs, address those issues and make that RFI system better. We will continue to give that data out, very much changing that narrative so that we are open and honest.

Mr Baker: When I go into schools, principals tell me how much pressure their SENCOs are under. Every principal I have sat down with has said that the RFI process was too time-consuming. You are telling us that it is simple. I think you said that it was user-friendly and dynamic. I cannot divulge the names of the people who are coming to me, but they are part of the LITs, and they are saying that it is far from simple. That correlates with what SENCOs and principals are saying to us. To me, what you are saying today does not make any sense.

Ms Cuthbert: As I said, I am going on the evaluations completed by SENCOs. I am also recognising that this is a journey. Some of it comes down to confidence and familiarity first of all. It does take time to use any digital system. We all know the challenges of that but there is a point where if there are additional things —. For example, we are on the fifth version of the RFI system. In the feedback coming from SENCOs, in week three, an issue was raised about there not being enough space in the boxes for the outcomes. That was immediately addressed and changed. We shut the system down in October to update that, and we will do that continually.

Mr Baker: How do you then score the referrals, and what constitutes pathway 1, 2 and 3? Nobody I have dealt with has got past pathway 2.

Ms Cuthbert: I can give you the figures on pathway 3. Children are still coming through with pathway 3 but the difference is that the child comes through with the information that we have, we look at the child factors: what is going on within that child in relation to their specific SEN category; how is that being presented; and what was done by the school to date? It is about taking on board what schools are doing. That is the important bit. If a school has done everything that it needs, that is important to recognise. We also look at children's family factors and what is going on in the school. We then use a simple scoring matrix to look at what their initial pathway is. To be clear, however, the pathways are flexible. It is not about creating more silos. Children can move through pathways. It is important, however, that we get the support for that out to schools earlier.

Mr Baker: All I am saying —

The Chairperson (Mr Mathison): A brief final point, Danny.

Mr Baker: — is that there seems to be a blockage because it seems that anybody who comes to me does not get beyond pathway 2.

I will ask a wee question on the make-up of the LITs, because I know that you were out recruiting. Are all LIT staff teachers?

Ms Cuthbert: There are approximately 199 teachers across the LITs. Approximately 89 staff are what we call "intervention officers" or classroom —

Mr Baker: What qualifications do they have?

Ms Cuthbert: That varies. They can have recognition of at least five years' experience as a classroom assistant, because it is a promotion —

Mr Baker: I have nothing against classroom assistants, but I need to ask this now because I am out of time. Would a classroom assistant have that caseload and advise teachers on how to do their job?

Ms Cuthbert: No.

Mr Baker: Never?

Ms Cuthbert: No. I will be honest: there is legacy practice with classroom assistants. The scale is that we have classroom assistants, behaviour support assistants, intervention officers and teachers. Some interventions in previous services operated in different ways, but we are aligning that now to make sure that, in providing that support, people work within their job description, area of expertise and qualifications. There is great work there; we have some fantastic classroom assistants with great experience. It is about how we support them, being fair in how they are paid and looking at the further work that is needed for the classroom assistant model and job description. We welcome —

Mr Baker: Yes, 100%, I know that classroom assistants do a great job. I was just trying to get clarity on the fact that an intervention officer does not have a caseload. They would not give advice to a principal, for example.

Ms Cuthbert: No. For us, and intervention would have —

The Chairperson (Mr Mathison): A very brief answer.

Ms Cuthbert: It depends on what the determination of a caseload is —

The Chairperson (Mr Mathison): We are over time here.

Ms Cuthbert: — but an intervention is overseen by a teacher. Again, it varies in different areas, and we are working with staff to get that.

Mr Baker: Thank you.

The Chairperson (Mr Mathison): If there is anything that needs to be clarified around any of that, we can follow up on it at the end of the session.

Mr Brooks: Thanks for the information that you have given so far. If your staff feel frustrated, it is right that you would give voice to that. We do not know what requests or anything that caused that frustration, but it is right that you speak up for them.

I find that, in your contributions — not just this week; you have been a regular visitor, Tomas — you try to be as sincere as you can and to give us all the information that you can. Thank you for your patience and for what you have given so far. I do not have a huge number of questions, and those that I do will probably touch on or overlap with some things that have been said.

LITs and the bringing together of Health and Education, which have been touched on, are probably a focus of mine. The part of your submission document titled "Health and LITs – making support truly multi-disciplinary" refers to aspiration. It is right that it does so. You said to look down the road — that you will be back in June and we can ask more questions then. Without wanting to say that there is some sort of hold-up, resistance or pushback from Health, your submission that there will be:

To be clear about Health colleagues, it by no means throws them under the bus, but I get the sense that it hints at you waiting to see what happens at the Health end. Can we get more information on that? What are you hearing is holding Health up and stopping it from stepping into this space?

I am slightly nervous about this, and I understand that it goes against what we have been arguing for — I understand that it is a contradiction in terms — but you have said, as the Minister has, that we need to look at how we can do that in Education by supporting some of those Health staff through the Education budget and so on. I get a little worried about that, because, as with Danny, my experience from being on Belfast City Council is that, when one body steps up to help by taking something off a Department, the Departments are very good at walking back and allowing them to take the whole load. What do you hear from Health is the hold-up? Does it have a willingness to invest in this and make it work?

Dr Adell: There is good cooperation with Health. An advantage is that I was in the Department of Health for a long time and know those people personally. We get on very well, and there are certainly no bad intentions from Health. We have different outcomes. Health has a priority to provide healthcare treatment. We have a priority to ensure educational well-being. They are two slightly different things. If healthcare has a waiting list for an intervention, it is prioritised based on clinical not educational need. I am not saying that that is wrong, only that it is different. Therefore, with the pressures across the health service and the whole public sector, we might have to think about how we make sure that our priorities — what we need for effective education — is a prioritised need for services. The thing is that, with healthcare, it will never be realistic to expect educational services to be prioritised. Therefore, we must find different ways of providing the same outcomes.

It is the kind of thing where, if we try the same thing over and over again, we will get the same results, so let us try something else. Will we get it right first time? I hope so, but none of us is perfect. Let us try something else and see if it works.

I recently met a doctor from Philadelphia, who was in Northern Ireland speaking to various public sector bodies. She was employed by a school authority which ran its own health service. That is unhelpful: here in the Northern Ireland context, that would not be the right thing. However, there are aspects where it might be right. It does not mean that we, necessarily, do everything ourselves, but it might be that we create posts that are protected, which might integrate —. It might be better to crossover, and the exact details we have yet to work out.

Mr Brooks: My fear is how we stop that developing into a situation whereby the EA or the Department of Education becomes directly responsible for all sorts of healthcare while the child is at school. That is a nonsense. Certainly, things can be done with health professionals that will help educational outcomes. I get that, but we have to be careful that it does not allow a Department, which, understandably, is under a huge amount of strain, as the Department of Education is, willing, able and wanting to find ways to pull back its investment in certain areas.

You said this, Tomas, and I agree with you — I am glad that you raised it, but, as in the Assembly this week, we are all guilty of this, and I do not make any political point — we are good at picking out things that are wonderful and nice programmes that cost hundreds of millions of pounds and saying how we would love that to happen in Northern Ireland, whilst the Department of Education is under huge budgetary strain.

You were saying that you only have x amount of resource but there is y number of children, and that is the reality that you are dealing in. I know that it comes as part of the reform, but, if you are then saying that we can start looking at bringing in health professionals, and that is a big outlay as well. How do we stop that developing into a situation where it is just unsustainable?

The Chairperson (Mr Mathison): That was quite a long preamble, so please keep your answer as brief as possible.

Dr Adell: It might be a big outlay, but it might be a more effective use of public money. We might get a better educational outcome overall. As Gillian said, for some pupils with literacy need, if there is a speech need, fixing it might help to solve the literacy need. It might be in our own interest to do some of these things. There should definitely not be an educational healthcare service. That would be wrong, and I am the first to agree with that. We need to get the balance right. Here, we are at concept research point, not at detailed plans or a product. We need to sit down and do this properly. What I am asking is this: give me the chance to do it properly.

Mr Brooks: Chair, let me just say in response, quickly, that I admire the philosophy. In many ways, it is what we have been asking for. I just worry that we are not seeing that same philosophy and ambition from Health, and I would like to see a little bit more commitment to it because everything I read and have seen so far feels as though it has been pushed back. I understand the reasons, but there needs to be a change of mindset somewhere in the Department of Health.

The Chairperson (Mr Mathison): David and Gary had indicated.

Mr Middleton: Thank you all for taking the questions. Quite a number have been asked so mine, hopefully, will not take too long. I want to bring you back to the start of your opening presentation. You felt strongly enough, and the issue was important enough, to mention the issue of staff and how they feel. Ultimately, their well-being is important. However, with morale, it is not only about staff well-being, which is important, it is also about how that impacts on the children, the parents and those who are engaging with the LITs. I want to hone in on them. What is their feedback? What are their particular frustrations, bar criticism? Are there particular things that they call for or that they see as the immediate things that could be done to help improve our situation?

Ms Cuthbert: Do you want to talk about the groups that we do with the staff?

Ms Garvey: You are completely right. Our staff are our most important resource, and we are committed to making sure that we put in place support for them as well. This is a huge transition and transformation for our teams and staff, as well as for schools. We have worked really closely with our staff during the process. We have set up task and finish groups throughout the transformation process and allowed staff to nominate and indicate areas whose development they are interested in supporting. We also use the 'Take 5 steps to wellbeing' approach when we set any staff development activities etc. We want to ensure that that is embedded into the LIT model, and that that nurturing approach to our staff is fostered throughout the LIT model as well. We look for opportunities to engage with staff regularly. We have LIT reflection sessions every month and drop-in sessions with specialist teams every Monday, so we have opportunities for staff to feed back.

Dr Adell: A big point is that it is a big change programme. A change programme is really difficult. We will obviously do proper post-project evaluation to identify how we can do things better. There will undoubtedly be areas where we could have done things better with our staff. It would be foolish to say the opposite. We have given staff a promise.

Mr Middleton: It is very early days. It is frustrating because, as MLAs, of course, we get the worst cases. That is why they come to us. Very rarely do people come — they certainly do not come to my office — to say, "You know what? Well done guys, you have done a great job". Usually, they come to say, "There is a problem". I have sympathy with MLAs raising that. I suppose that it is about how it is done in a way that recognises not just that good work is being done but that there are specific challenges.

The detail in the paper is fantastic. If only all Departments brought forward such level of detail, that would be very much welcomed. In order to make a comparison between the old system and the LIT system, it would be useful for us to see the monitoring of that. You have laid out the potential benefit, not all of which has been realised, obviously. Do you plan to format that monitoring for us and provide that level of detail on, for example, the contact system? I think that there were 39 different numbers, and now there is one portal. There are so many different areas. I think that you touch on 11 different areas in that table. Can that monitoring be provided at that level?

Dr Adell: Of course. One of the big changes that I want to make in how we talk about SEN in the EA generally is that we are much more open and honest about the data, not just here but about the statutory assessment process that we talked about last week and other things. We do not necessarily publish stats on those things regularly. I think that we should be doing that, so we are working towards that. That absolutely goes for LITs and the statutory assessment process. We have nothing to hide, right? When we do not succeed, we should say so openly. When we are successful, we want to be able to show the evidence as well. We have no problem providing that to the Committee and to the public.

Mr Middleton: Thank you. Certainly, from our perspective, thank you for your openness, because it this a challenge. As David said — he sort of skirted around it — the reality is that we have to be realistic about the budgetary position. As politicians, we have to look at what we can achieve and be honest with the public because motions have been agreed in the Assembly that would literally cost hundreds of millions of pounds to do what has been agreed. We have to be realistic. We cannot, on one hand, propose those things and, at the same time, expect you to move mountains. We have to grapple with that, not only as a Committee but as the Assembly as a whole. Thank you for your time. I appreciate that.

Mr Sheehan: Chair, can I make a quick comment?

The Chairperson (Mr Mathison): Briefly, Deputy Chair, yes. Then we will close up the session.

Mr Sheehan: With regard to what Gary said, quite a number of people from LITs have approached Sinn Féin Members. Some of them are actually afraid to give us their names for fear that they will be identified. OK: it is not a massive number, but a significant number of people have approached us. There seems to be a sort of culture of fear that, if they are identified as having been critical, there will be repercussions in some way. Certainly, that mindset is there. Have you carried out any sort of well-being survey among staff in the LITs?

Dr Adell: First of all, that is concerning to me. I want to have an organisation where people can speak completely openly. I enjoy the sessions. I mean it: I enjoy having challenging discussions, because that is how we get better outcomes, right? It is not personal; it is about getting better services. I just want to stress that.

Mrs Mason: That is why we are here.

Dr Adell: If that is the culture in the EA, I want to change that. I want to give you that assurance because that is not what I want. I want people to be able to speak openly and freely and express their views. When it comes to the well-being service, the simple answer is yes.

Ms Cuthbert: Again, just to add to that, it is vital that our staff are fundamental to making this work. That is why we have had the reflection sessions. We are encouraging staff to come forward, and we are very much practised and trauma-informed; the whole idea is solution-focused. We want people to come up with a solution on how we can make it better. I do not want any staff to feel like that, and that is why we have been open and have had those meetings, face-to-face sessions, and there are further trade union side (TUS) sessions coming up —

Mr Sheehan: But Gillian, it is one thing to have face-to-face meetings; it is another thing to have a survey, where people who have complaints are not being identified.

Ms Cuthbert: The draft well-being service is with our TUS colleagues at the moment because, again, I want to make sure that it is reflective and that it is what is needed. That will be going out to staff as soon as I get that feedback, which should be in the coming days.

Mr Sheehan: OK. Thank you.

The Chairperson (Mr Mathison): Thank you all for your evidence today. Obviously, that will all be fed into the inquiry report. Thank you again for your time.