Official Report: Minutes of Evidence

The Chairperson (Mr Mathison): With us, we have Janis Scallon, director of SEN reform and inclusion development in the Department of Education; Lorraine Brown, head of special education — early years and pupil support; Karen Campbell, head of the SEN reform delivery team; Sharon Allen, head of the SEN reform support team ; and Emma Morgan, principal statistician. I hope that I got all those titles right — there is always a risk that I will get a job title wrong when we have multiple officials. Correct me if I got any wrong. You are all welcome.

It is worth saying, before you start your briefing, Janis, that this will be your last time presenting to the Education Committee, as you are moving to a different role. I am not sure whether you will be too sad to walk out of this room for the last time, but I want to record our thanks for all the work that you have done in this space over the years and for the time that you have given to the Committee on these issues.

I will hand over to you for your presentation shortly. When we have a big panel, I am always conscious of the fact that it can draw out the evidence session. Therefore, I ask that all members try to stick to five minutes per enquiry, and if other panel members are coming in, please help us keep to time. There is going to be a lot of interest in the item, and we need to make sure that we give everybody appropriate time to ask their questions. At this stage, I am happy to hand over for the initial presentation, and then we will move to questions and answers. Janis, I assume that you are taking it from here.

Mrs Janis Scallon (Department of Education): Thank you. I begin by thanking the Committee for giving us the opportunity to come here to provide an update on the progress of the enabling actions, as set out in the Minister's special educational needs reform agenda and associated delivery plan, which was published a year ago today, in February 2025.

This is the first of four sessions, as agreed by the Chair and Deputy Chair. I hope that the sessions provide the Committee with an overview of where we are in SEN reform delivery. With your agreement, I will focus on the enabling actions — specific actions in the delivery plan.

Since publication of the SEN reform agenda and delivery plan, my SEN reform and inclusion development directorate's focus has been twofold: to implement the enabling actions, which are fundamental to delivering reform and creating the conditions for meaningful change over the next five years; and to develop and deliver the year 1 actions, including those funded by the public-sector transformation fund. The Committee is fully aware of the breadth of actions that are outlined in the delivery plan, the current budgetary constraints under which Departments are working and the significant investment that is required to fully implement SEN reform. However, I welcome the opportunity to focus on the enabling actions, as set out in the plan, and to report on progress to date. In essence, the enablers create the necessary conditions that are required to deliver change whilst building a sustainable model for the future.

I will provide the Committee with an overview of each of the enabling actions and an update on the current status. I will start with the SEN policy statement. In recent years, various scrutiny reports and recommendations, including the Department's end-to-end review of SEN, highlighted the gap that exists, the fact that the policy landscape lacks clarity and the fact that parents and teachers do not have access to a readily accessible document that clearly defines the existing model of provision for children with SEN. As an early priority, we committed to bringing forward a SEN policy statement to clarify the current legislative and policy position and set out the roles and responsibilities of the Department, the Education Authority (EA), schools and boards of governors.

Chair, you and the members present will be aware that the policy statement on special educational needs was published by the Minister on 28 August 2025. I will point out that the policy statement was underpinned by the central tenet that children and young people with SEN should benefit from greater inclusion and receive the right support from the right people at the right time and in the right place. The policy statement therefore sets out, for the first time, the existing SEN policy position and underpinning legislation in one document. The policy aims and objectives contained in the statement align with the SEN reform agenda to ensure that the existing framework will work more effectively and consistently for every child and family.

Another key enabling action that we were pleased to deliver was the development of the 'Special Educational Needs/Disability (SEN/D) Reform Agenda: Outcomes Framework 2025-2030', which was published by the Minister on 20 June 2025. Following significant engagement with the Education Authority, the Department of Health and other extremely valued stakeholders, the framework was created using established outcomes-based accountability principles. The framework accords with the Executive's Programme for Government, which prioritises providing better support for children and young people with SEN and seeks to enable all involved with SEN reform to focus on outcomes that demonstrate whether we are actually making a difference for children with SEN and their families.

The framework is structured around the outcomes for four customer groups identified in the SEN reform agenda, namely children, parents, schools and education staff, and services. We recognise that high-quality provision for children with SEN must be underpinned by up-to-date evidence-informed practice and shaped by research on what works. To achieve that, we will implement robust evidence-based monitoring, analysis and evaluation through annual population indicators to determine whether and to what extent those outcomes are being contributed to.

The Department wants to ensure complete transparency on the impact of SEN reform, and we plan to develop a dashboard for citizens to easily and readily see progress as we move forward. Our dedicated professional statistician from the Northern Ireland Statistics and Research Agency (NISRA), Emma, who sits to my left, is providing the professional expertise to progress that work. Performance measures and annual report cards have been developed for the projects that are currently progressing. In addition, an independent evaluation of the SEN transformation projects will track key milestones throughout the implementation and a schedule for completion by March 2029.

It is widely accepted that there is a need to rebuild relationships, trust and confidence in SEN provision. That goes for parents, children, teachers and special educational needs coordinators (SENCOs) alike. The enabling actions that underpin the programme of transformation will support authentic reform and change that is built on evidence, not anecdote, as we respond to the recommendations in the various scrutiny reports that, time and again, told us the same story: the system is not fit for purpose. We have engaged with schools as we work to progress a number of public-sector transformation fund initiatives, and there are three upcoming sessions on those on 18 February, 25 February and 4 March. Therefore, I will not comment further on those at this point. By working closely with schools and communities, we aim to build strong, honest and trusted partnerships and a tried-and-tested evidence base to take reform into the coming years.

We are also making progress on developing the lived experience forum, and we are working with design and software development colleagues to develop an appropriate platform for that. Open engagement will ensure that individuals with lived experience will play a central role in shaping progress and providing feedback to ensure that reforms remain agile and responsive. Through the lived experience forum, we aim to create an opportunity for all voices to be heard and for parents to share their experiences about the practical challenges that they or their children face in accessing education. It is also intended to act as a sounding board for the projects and initiatives to ensure that policy development, practices and evidence reflect the needs and experiences of those who live and work with individuals with SEN.

However, there remain a number of enabling actions that have not yet commenced, including the appointment of a SEN champion, the establishment of a ministerial expert advisory panel and the establishment of an enhanced advocacy service. My team has had to strike a balance between creating the appropriate conditions for reform and design and ensuring delivery mechanisms for actions that are funded through the public-sector transformation fund. To that end, that work has been prioritised accordingly.

I know that the Committee is keen to see change on the ground. We have made good progress on the enabling actions, which I talked about, and on some of the year 1 actions. The EA has progressed with the streamlining and digitisation of the statutory assessment process, which is now live. It has also published its graduated response framework and gone live with local impact teams (LITs), as well as publishing the operational plan 2, which prioritises area planning for special education provision. In addition, individual special school plans of action have been co-designed and published. The Education and Training Inspectorate (ETI) has completed its evaluation of specialist provision part 2, and the report is expected imminently.

I have nearly finished. As you will be aware, we were successful in our bid to the public-sector transformation board. We have secured £27·5 million over four years, which will be used to transform the support model for children with a statement, establish a suite of SEN-specific professional development for teachers and classroom assistants, and support a move to a more inclusive education system, as well as testing and trialling a range of innovative approaches to early intervention and support. Those will all be covered in detail in the future plan sessions. However, systemic reform takes time, and we need to get it right.

The Minister has released his statement — it is hot off the press — on the five-year plan for the budget. I had a chance to look through it this morning. I have been in touch with senior officials in the Department, who are more than happy to come, at any point, to brief the Committee on that. I do not have all that detail with me, and I understand that you might want to ask some questions, but I can take those back to the Department, if that is appropriate.

Thank you for your time. I am happy to take any questions.

The Chairperson (Mr Mathison): Thank you, Janis. You got through a lot in that short time. That is appreciated. There is a fair bit of stuff in the statement from the Minister that relates to SEN, so there may be interest in it.

I know that it is difficult, but I ask members to try to stick, as far as possible, within the confines of the briefing so that we do not overload the session with topics that we will revisit in future weeks. We should try to streamline the evidence that we get for the inquiry. However, I know that everything in SEN is connected to everything else, and that it can be difficult to stick to that, so I appreciate the challenge.

I have a question that I do not want to spend too long on. The Committee received an informal briefing from Professor Victoria Graf. She has engaged extensively with the Department. She spoke in some detail about the context in which she is operating in California and highlighted very strongly the issue of an inclusive education policy. She was very clear. I think that, if we were left with one message, it was that, if you do not have an overarching view of what you want the system to look like, it is very hard to deliver reform. She talked about the clear definition of what a special school is for, what specialist provision in mainstream schools (SPiMS) is for, and what placements in mainstream are for. They are in a very different place in their system; they have been on a very different and long journey. How far away are we from having an overarching inclusive education policy? We need to understand what the Department's sense of what we are aiming for looks like.

Mrs Scallon: I have said before quite a bit that inclusion is not a policy document on a piece of paper. That will not deliver on inclusive education. It is about practice, including what happens in our classrooms, in our playgrounds, at home and in wider society, but —

The Chairperson (Mr Mathison): To be clear, it is about the different strands of the system. What are they for, and what do we want them to look like?

Mrs Scallon: The SEN policy statement sets that out. I have said all along that inclusion is woven into our legislation. There is a presumption of mainstream education. That does not take away a parent's right, through the statementing process, to express their preference for special school, but we have a continuum of provision. Children with SEN are in every element of that continuum. There are over 70,000 children with special educational needs in our system. The majority of them attend a mainstream school. There is a wealth of data — I encourage the Committee to look at it — on the European Agency for Special Needs and Inclusive Education (EASNIE) website. If you look at where Northern Ireland sits in those inclusion measures, you will see that we are not too bad when compared with some other countries. Children can be educated in a mainstream setting in a mainstream class, with or without assistance. They can be educated in a smaller group receiving specialist provision in mainstream, or they can be educated in a special school. That is what our system looks like.

We have a lot of policy across the Department. As you know, we have been working with the European agency through a technical support instrument on two things. The first is the development of a framework towards inclusive education for here. I am delighted to say that the Minister has approved the publication of that framework on the EASNIE website. That is the toolkit, and colleagues in the European agency will hold that toolkit up as best practice for other countries that wish to move into the space. Therefore, we have a full framework. In addition, the country policy development support system has been running in the background.

Where do we go from here? We need to bring those two things together, but we also need to do a lot of work at the directorate level in the Department with our arm's-length bodies (ALBs). The ALBs have been heavily involved in the production of the country policy development system reports, but we need to get to a stage where we can consolidate the framework with what is actually happening. The framework is out there now.

The Chairperson (Mr Mathison): Could it be shared with the Committee?

Mrs Scallon: The legislation, the policy and the framework is there, and the country policy development support piece needs to be brought in.

The Chairperson (Mr Mathison): It would be welcome if there was a provision to share that with the Committee.

Mrs Scallon: Absolutely. As soon as it is published, I will send the Committee a link, of course.

The Chairperson (Mr Mathison): In the interests of time, I will make a comment rather than ask another question. I still maintain that there is a sense of uncertainty in the system among parents, teachers and principals about what the pupil profiles might look like in different settings, and when it is appropriate for a child to be placed in a special school. I sense uncertainty around that, and a mechanism to bring clarity to how the continuum operates would be helpful. I appreciate that it is difficult.

Mrs Scallon: The systems are at a legislative policy level, which may not translate well in practice. Some of our actions, through the public-sector transformation fund, have involved work to build inclusion, capacity building and designing programmes. There is a plan to have an inclusion symposium. I am aware that, through TransformED funding, a number of schools have been kind enough to invite us to their inclusion conferences. Schools are most definitely working in that space to look at inclusive practice, universal design for learning, which Vicky will have spoken to you about at length, and we are working closely with the Middletown Centre for Autism to shape the inclusion piece. It will be September 2026 for the symposium.

The Chairperson (Mr Mathison): I have to move on in the interests of time. I may come back to you with other questions if time permits, but I am keen to bring in other members. One of the key enabling actions at the operational level is the graduated response framework and the local impact teams. What is your assessment of how effectively that has been rolled out?

Mrs Scallon: I can only take what the Education Authority tells me, and anything else that I tell you will be anecdotal. I have spoken to a number of schools, and they see a change on the ground because they get faster access to EA services with the local impact teams. The graduated response framework sits with the other directorate in the Department, and the EA has held a number of training and information sessions for schools. I have been reliably informed that the graduated response framework has been received very positively by schools.

The Chairperson (Mr Mathison): Will you accept that there appears to be a disconnect between what the EA has presented and the feedback that we hear from teachers and SENCOs? I have made it my business to engage with local SENCO clusters, and I have spoken to two or three of them. I am trying to move beyond anecdotal evidence and speak to the staff members. They are reporting unmanageable levels of workload, and that it is stymied from the outset because they cannot manage the volume that is coming through, and they remain unclear on exactly how the processes work. If the transformation is to be effective, should something tangible be done to support SENCOs? If we do not have the workforce operating as it should, with good morale and staying in post, it is difficult to see how we can deliver.

Mrs Scallon: I absolutely agree. When you take feedback from people on the ground, bear in mind that there are 1,000 schools. The EA did a baseline survey of pupil support services in 2023. I am not sure whether the Committee has seen that survey; it might be something to look at. I will come to the other survey when we talk about the outcomes framework. The survey was launched last May and June, and it ran until the end of September. I have not seen the initial results, but when you do a system-wide survey, the tangible evidence will come through. Up until now, we have only dealt with the feedback that we have been given. I would not disagree with the views. Some are very positive, some are incredibly negative, and I have also heard that from SENCOs. Thank you for sending the information from the SENCOs' survey; I have looked at it. We continue to engage with SENCOs. We are looking at the design and implementation of a leadership programme for learning support coordinators, as they will be called under the new legislation, to make sure that we take those signs on board and act appropriately.

A large tapestry of things needs to happen in SEN reform. It is systemic reform, but each bit feeds into something else. The reform agenda is about listening to SENCOs, making sure that their role is clearly defined and making sure that it does not become a paper-pushing job. You also have to look at the test and trial of the in-school support model that we will standing up under public-sector transformation, because that is looking at learning support teachers.

That should alleviate some of the role of a SENCO because, at the minute, they are having to do both roles. They have an administrative task, and they are also trying to work with children, and a lot of SENCOs have said, "That is not what I signed up for". It is trying to streamline all those things and make the administration less burdensome through the request for involvement, the streamlining of the statementing process, better information online, better training, a clear definition of the role, and testing and trialling the impact of learning support teachers in the classroom.

The Chairperson (Mr Mathison): I will leave it there because I am conscious that other members will want to come in. I have one final point. We do not always agree on everything in the Committee, but we are pretty clear across the board that there needs to be an intervention to support SENCOs. That feels fundamental to the success or failure of the whole enterprise because, to me, they are a demoralised workforce at the moment. They are committed to the kids whom they work with, but they do not feel that the job that they are doing right now is sustainable. I just want to put that on the record.

Mr Sheehan: Janis, you are the director of SEN reform, so you should know whether the Minister has any plans to cut the number of classroom assistants. Do you have information?

Mrs Scallon: There is no plan to cut the number of classroom assistants. As we have said on many occasions, there are three stages to the code of practice. We know the number and proportion of children with special educational needs who are coming through for statutory assessment and statements of special educational needs. We can rehearse ad nauseam the reasons for that. There are several reasons for that. First, either support is not being provided early enough, and the Minister has referenced that in his statement today, or schools are not being resourced at stage 1 of the code of practice to support children at the point of need. That is why we have chosen the early intervention projects to stand up under public-sector transformation. Secondly, stage 2 support, which comes from the EA, needs to be streamlined and refined. However, as it stands, if you are a parent of a child with special educational needs, and your child is not getting stage 1 support or effective stage 2 support, your only recourse is to refer your child via school referral, health referral or parental referral for a statement of special educational needs. When you go through that 26-week process, the answer that, nine out of 10 times, comes out the other end is the need for a one-to-one classroom assistant. We have to look, Pat, at the outcomes for children —

Mr Sheehan: I understand that.

Mrs Scallon: — and they are not getting better, so that needs to be transformed.

Mr Sheehan: Are you absolutely adamant here today and are telling the Committee and anyone who is watching this session — any parent or school that has an interest in the issue of children with additional needs — that the Minister is not going to cut the number of classroom assistants?

Mrs Scallon: I cannot talk about general classroom assistants in schools. I can only talk about what we are looking at in SEN reform and transforming that support model. They are the classroom assistants who are employed as a result of a child's statement of special educational needs. To be clear, when that is outlined in a statement —

Mr Sheehan: Those numbers are not going to be cut.

Mrs Scallon: — that child —. The EA has to make that provision.

Mr Sheehan: The number of classroom assistants who deal with children with special needs are not going to be cut. Are you adamant about that?

Mrs Scallon: Those classroom assistants need to have professional learning. They need to be valued for the work that they do, and they need to be deployed effectively. The most chaotic classroom that I saw was P7 —

Mr Sheehan: Everybody will absolutely agree that classroom assistants, especially those who deal with children with special needs, need to be effectively deployed.

Mrs Scallon: Absolutely.

Mr Sheehan: I want to get this answer clear so that there is no misunderstanding: is the Minister going to cut the number of classroom assistants, particularly those who deal with children with additional needs?

Mrs Scallon: If classroom assistants are dealing with children with statements of special educational needs, the Minister's desire is to make sure that that model is more effective for those children.

Mr Sheehan: Janis —

Mrs Scallon: It may be that those classroom assistants are deployed differently. It will definitely mean that they will have a continuing professional development (CPD) programme —

Mr Sheehan: I have no argument with different deployments. I am asking about numbers. I want to get this clear, because I am not clear from the answers that you have given so far whether the Minister has plans to cut the number of classroom assistants. It is a yes or no answer.

Mrs Scallon: It is not, Pat, because the plans that came out this morning still have to go out for public consultation. Therefore, there is not a definitive answer. I cannot give you a definitive answer. If I did, I would be misleading you, but I can say —

Mr Sheehan: Despite the fact that you are the director of SEN reform, you cannot give that reassurance to schools, teachers, parents and the people who work in the sphere of special educational needs. You cannot guarantee that there are not going to be cuts.

Mrs Scallon: I cannot say yes to that, and I cannot say no, but I can say that this is not a finance-cutting exercise. It is about making sure that those who are employed in schools to deliver for children, as outlined in the individual child's statement, can do so effectively; are valued for their work; have a proper CPD training programme in place; and have more permanency and surety in their jobs. It is also about ensuring that the outcomes for those children get better.

Mr Sheehan: We all agree with that, Janis. I need to move on to one other question. Will you explain why we need a SEN champion? Should the Minister not be the champion?

Mrs Scallon: Of course the Minister is the champion.

The Chairperson (Mr Mathison): Give a brief response on that, in the interests of time.

Mrs Scallon: That came through when we started to look at the end-to-end review. To be fair, parents and teachers are champions of children with SEN, but we felt that we would put that into the reform agenda and look at whether we needed a defined role for someone who would look only at those needs all of the time.

Mr Sheehan: If there was a SEN champion, would the Minister take that champion's advice? We have a mental health champion. The Health Minister does not necessarily take the advice of the mental health champion. The Education Minister certainly does not take the advice of the mental health champion, who says that academic selection is unethical and harmful. There must be some follow-on from that position. In light of what I have just said, do you want to make a comment on the efficacy of a SEN champion?

The Chairperson (Mr Mathison): Be brief, Janis.

Mrs Scallon: We have not yet moved that forward. It is something that we need to look at. Obviously, any person who is appointed to that role would be approved by the Minister. We have not got that far. We have had to prioritise looking at the projects, standing them up and getting governance structures in place, as well as the other things that I mentioned in my presentation. However, yes, it is intended that it will be progressed in this calendar year, and that will be with ministerial approval. Consultation with stakeholders will also be required before the person is appointed, and ministerial experts will need to be brought in. I can see those two things working hand in hand.

Mr Sheehan: Fair enough; thank you.

Mrs Mason: Janis, may I clarify one thing that you said? Did you just see the education budget strategy this morning, at the same time as us?

Mrs Scallon: Yes.

Mrs Mason: You — the director of this huge project — only got sight of it this morning.

Mrs Scallon: Yes.

Mrs Mason: OK. A couple of things concern me. I had other questions, but things that have just been said around the enabling actions have concerned me, a little bit. The word "crisis" has been bandied around. I do not think that there is anybody who would not agree that there is a SEN crisis. We have sat here numerous times as we have conducted our SEN inquiry, and we have heard about the distressing things that are going on in the system. Nobody could be happy with the way in which the system is working. I have heard about symposiums and conferences and all those different things, and you are saying the right things about the need to restore confidence and trust.

What difference have schools actually seen? We are now a year on, so what difference have schools, parents and children seen?

Mrs Scallon: I need to be clear about where we are now. You cannot just set up and deliver a reform agenda overnight. It does not work like that. The conditions to make that happen need to be created. One of the things that came through in every scrutiny report, Cathy, was the need for clarity on policy and legislation. That is the job of the Department. That was one of the first things that we prioritised. Another thing that came through was, "We need more training. We need more information. We need more information around the code of practice. We need more information on who is responsible for what". That is there. With the SEN policy statement, rather than expecting —. I am a parent of a child with special educational needs myself, so I have navigated the system and know how complex it is. There is no parent out there who I do not agree with about what it is like to navigate that system. The legislation is not always clear. The policy is not always clear. That is what the policy statement is for. That is the job of the Department.

Mrs Mason: I understand that.

Mrs Scallon: When it comes to what happens on the ground, there has been digitisation of the statementing process. That went live in January, so, as a parent, I know that it is now different. It is not operating via snail mail any more. You do not have to phone and wait, being passed from pillar to post. You can log on and find out where your child's case is at. That is just one example.

Mrs Mason: Janis, I appreciate that, and I understand that there needs to be policy, but, for parents, teachers, principals, SENCOs and classroom assistants, that is all just words. If there is a crisis, you have to react quickly. It is not just about policy; it is about actually seeing it on the ground. That is where the concern is. It also concerns me that, when the Chair asked the question, you said that the Department is listening to the EA. I am horrified to hear that you have heard that the feedback is wonderful and fantastic, because that is the polar opposite of what we are hearing.

Mrs Scallon: I did not say that it was wonderful and fantastic; I said that the EA has reported from the training sessions that it held that the feedback was broadly positive. That is what I actually said.

Mrs Mason: The training sessions might be wonderful, but the reality on the ground for SENCOs —. You said that the Department is engaging with SENCOs. You said that you are listening to the EA but are directly engaging with SENCOs. Have you heard from SENCOs that they need their role to be full-time?

Mrs Scallon: Yes.

Mrs Mason: Is that going to happen?

Mrs Scallon: The role of SENCOs will be looked at. In each school —.

Mrs Mason: You say "looked at", but is it going to happen?

Mrs Scallon: Let me break it down for you, Cathy. There are schools out there that have 30 children — where that is the size of the entirety of the school. They may have one child in P1 and no children in P2. They may have two or three children with special educational needs, or none. Such a school will have —.

Mrs Mason: Janis, there are schools out there with 300 children but SENCOs who are working only a couple of days a week.

Mrs Scallon: I agree. That is at the other end of the scale, but there are a lot of very small schools out there where the SENCO is also a teacher, who is given extra responsibility points and the role comes on top of their job. There are other schools where a SENCO is a full-time role, and there are schools in the middle, of the 1,000 schools that we have, in which SENCOs are given time off the timetable. I accept, in looking at that role, that we need to look at the plethora of different jobs that SENCOs have and change that —.

Mrs Mason: Again, it is OK saying that you are going to look at it. It is about what action will come out of it and what reassurance they can take —.

Mrs Scallon: Saying that all SENCOs should become full-time SENCOs: could the system pay for that in a school that has only 30 children?

Mrs Mason: Janis, SENCOs are leaving. You said that you saw the survey.

Mrs Scallon: I know. I agree.

Mrs Mason: There is a crisis at the minute, and it will only get worse, so we have to stop "looking at it" and actually deliver something.

Mrs Scallon: We are talking to people, and, like I say, in anecdotal evidence, I hear both sides of the story. I hear from SENCOs who are at their wit's end and are not coping with the volume of paperwork and administration. That is what I said. That is not what they signed up for. I also hear from SENCOs who are saying, "Look, I am starting to see things change". Things will not change overnight. That is the reality. No transformation will change anything overnight. It takes time. Things need time to embed and evolve. It is an operational question for Education Authority colleagues, but the fact that they are regularly engaging — we do, too — is definitely a step change from where things were two or three years ago.

Mrs Guy: Thank you for coming today. First, following on from Cathy's question, you can appreciate that it will not instil a lot of confidence in people if a director of SEN reform and inclusion in the Department did not know about the reforms that were announced today and how they impact on SEN.

Mrs Scallon: I did not see the final statement that went out: that is what I said.

Mrs Guy: So, you knew that something was coming. Right, OK.

Mrs Scallon: The Department has been working on the five-year plan, so I was seeing wee bits that were put into it —

Mrs Guy: You had a bit of knowledge of it. OK.

Mrs Scallon: — but I did not see the statement before it went out today.

Mrs Guy: I will raise the issue of teaching assistants again, because it has been raised with me since yesterday. An awareness that the statement would come today was related to me via the parents who were contacted by journalists. You can understand how unsettling it was for those parents to hear about the one-to-one classroom assistants and have no knowledge of what it will mean for them, and they probably still do not have that knowledge now. I have a couple of basic questions. How will you support parents and carers as they go through the reforms? Can you tell us what the reforms will mean for pupils? Many parents have said that the only way that their child can really access education is with the support of a teaching assistant.

Mrs Scallon: OK. There will be a session on 18 February that will look at that model. The reason that we agreed to have the four sessions was so that we could to get into the detail. Today is about the enabling actions, of which that is not one. However, to be honest, the evidence points to the need to bring it back to children and the outcomes for children. The outcomes for children are not getting better. We are not seeing progress among our children with statements. That is why —.

Mrs Guy: I understand all that, but what kind of support will there be for parents who are going through the process?

Mrs Scallon: We have set up our lived experience forum. I have absolutely no doubt, and the Minister has already said, that the five-year plan will go out for consultation, so there will be an opportunity to respond to it. I do not know if there are other plans in the Department to look after the five-year plan at a more strategic level, or whether there will be other opportunities to engage, but the five-year plan will go out to consultation. We engage with and hear from parents all the time, so —.

Mrs Guy: We are pressed for time. My second question was this: can you give us some sense of what this will mean for pupils who currently have one-to-one classroom assistants?

Mrs Scallon: There will always be a need for one-to-one classroom assistants. It may not be for every single child, but there will always be that need. As I said, it comes down to the legislative duty. The legislation is there: it is very clear for all to read, and we have clarified it even further in the SEN policy statement. The child's statement provides the child with the statutory protection that they need. There will always be that need. No one is saying that no child will ever have a one-to-one classroom assistant.

Mrs Guy: That is the kind of reassurance that people want to hear.

Mrs Scallon: We have always said that.

Mrs Guy: When things have gone out in the media today as they have, it is important for us to give you an opportunity to provide assurance to people.

Mrs Scallon: There will always be that need, but is it the right answer for every single child? No. The Ulster University has produced a report, and there is any amount of international evidence to show that that does not work —.

Mrs Guy: I need to move on to LITs. I am sorry to interrupt you, but I am pressed for time.

Mrs Scallon: Sorry.

Mrs Guy: We are really clear about what the EA has prioritised in SEN delivery: it has looked at local impact teams and school support staff. Can you explain why the Department has not funded those LITs even to the baseline staffing level?

Mrs Scallon: We do fund the LITs. They are funded through the EA's core block grant.

Mrs Guy: No. We know that the LITs do not have sufficient resource. We know that those teams are not fully staffed. I asked the Minister about it when he was here.

Mrs Scallon: The Education Authority has never submitted a business case to the Department to ask for any more funding for the LITs. We fund the LITs through the block grant. All of those teams are core funded. If there is a need for more resource, the EA needs to bid for that resource and come to the Department with a business case, and it has not done so.

Mrs Guy: OK, so it is the EA's fault.

I want to understand the EA's work on the ground to deliver for people. A lot of ministerial advisory panels have been set up. What role will they play in helping the EA to deliver on the ground?

Mrs Scallon: I will take things back a bit. We produced the SEN reform agenda on this day last year. TransformED came out next, and the early learning and childcare agenda came after that. We work together in the Department, and a number of expert advisory panels have been set up. We came out of the blocks to say, first, that there would be a ministerial expert advisory panel on SEN, but is that the right thing to do, or would it be better to put that expertise into those other advisory panels? If an advisory panel is looking at curriculum, assessment or qualifications, would it not be better to have someone on it with SEN expertise having that conversation, so that we can align what is in that reform agenda, rather than special educational needs being seen as something separate and distinct from everything else? We are looking at that at the minute.

Mrs Guy: Thank you.

Mr Baker: Thanks to the panel. Janis, how many schools have only 30 pupils?

Mrs Scallon: There is actually quite a number. It is a small number, but hundreds of schools fall below the sustainability thresholds.

Mr Baker: Hundreds. The way in which you answered the earlier question was interesting, because we are hearing evidence from SENCOs about the pressures that they are under. For you to go to that end of the scale, where schools have just 30 pupils —.

Mrs Scallon: The pressures are different, Danny. There is no doubt about it.

Mr Baker: Of course they are.

Mrs Scallon: We just have to be mindful of the full landscape that is out there.

Mr Baker: Yes, but the support is not going to where it needs to go — to the children who are at the coalface. In the two years since we have been back, and the year since the announcement of the advisory panels, I have not seen any improvement. It all sounds great — it really does — but let us not pretend that we have not known what the challenges are for the past decade or two decades. You could plaster this whole room with the reports. This is nothing new. What are you doing? What are you doing right now that has improved a child's life? I am not seeing it.

Mrs Scallon: Well, as I rehearsed in my opening statement —.

Mr Baker: Janis, can you break it down into really simple terms? You talked at very high level.

Mrs Scallon: Sorry. OK, I will break it down.

Mr Baker: Really break it down for any parent who is listening today. I am really concerned about how you answered Pat's question on classroom assistants. I will go with this: if my child has a classroom assistant right now, is there any danger that my child's one-to-one support will be taken away?

Mrs Scallon: I would have a look at your —. I would not want to advise any individual parent —

Mr Baker: So, someone could take a look and take that support away.

Mrs Scallon: — but, as a parent, I would look at the child's individual statement to see what it says.

Mr Baker: So, if a child has something in place right now, that could be removed.

Mrs Scallon: I cannot answer that. If a child has a statement —. You need to look back at what the law says, Danny. You will know as well as I do that —

Mr Baker: I do.

Mrs Scallon: — if it is specified in a statement, that statement is under review every single year. There is no guarantee that a child will have a one-to-one classroom assistant constantly, every single year. If you have a child who is three or four years old, and they have one-to-one support for whatever their condition might be, by the time that that child is six, seven, eight, nine or 10, they may no longer need that one-to-one assistant. Children's needs change. Their progress and profile changes over time. Likewise, the opposite could happen.

Mr Baker: That is a very worrying answer, Janis.

Mrs Scallon: It is not.

Mr Baker: It is.

Mrs Scallon: A statement is due to be reviewed annually. Every single statement is reviewed every single year. That pertains to the work of SENCOs as well. Every year, 30,000 statements have to be reviewed.

Mr Baker: Do you see the work that families have to do to win that support?

Mrs Scallon: That is what the law says.

Mr Baker: You said that, but they have to fight and go through tribunals. I am really concerned about the Minister's statement, because it looks as though children with special educational needs and additional needs will be made a political football here. That is what he will do.

Mrs Scallon: I sincerely hope that they are not.

Mr Baker: So do I, but it is really worrying, because —.

Mrs Scallon: Children should never be described as such.

Mr Baker: They are not seeing the outworkings. I have not heard anything today that will do it. I think that we will get to end of this term, and what we will hear will be very much, "Oh, I didn't have an additional £2 billion to make that happen and transform it". In the whole time that we have been on the Education Committee, I have not seen or heard anything from the EA or yourselves, to be brutally honest, about an outworking that actually benefits children. I have not seen it.

Mrs Scallon: Can I respond to that, Chair? There are a few things to say. As I said before, we cannot stand it up overnight. We just do not have that silver bullet.

Mr Baker: No one would expect you to, Janis.

Mrs Scallon: As we have said from day 1, we did not get confirmation of any funding. We had to seek funding from the transformation fund, which was a very long, arduous, difficult process. Ours was one of only 11 applications from Departments that got through. I think that there were 85 applications, and ours was one of 11 that got through, so we got that £27·5 million. We then had to set up a delivery unit. We had to put governance structures in place. We had to create the conditions to allow SEN reform to take place. We cannot do it on the back of an envelope — nor should we. This is about children. I need to answer the question. We have done that now.

In the meantime, we have devised the projects that we will stand up under the public-sector transformation fund. We have released the preschool inclusion fund. We launched that preschool inclusion fund through engagement with our preschools, who were saying, "We are getting children in at the age of three with unidentified need. No one has seen these children. We are seeing the need in our preschools, and we have no additional help". That fund is now out there. Last year, we listened and augmented the fund for this year. It is now in over 600 preschools.

Mr Baker: You knew all that —.

Mrs Scallon: That is on the ground and is making a difference.

Mr Baker: — so who do you need advisory groups to set all that up?

Mrs Scallon: I did not need an advisory group for that. We took it from the scrutiny reports that we had and the recommendations from the end-to-end review.

Mr Baker: OK. One last point: can you say, and stand over saying, for example, that we will not have a placements crisis this year for children with special educational needs?

Mrs Scallon: I cannot give a binary answer to that either.

Mr Baker: Of course you can.

Mrs Scallon: This is being oversimplified.

Mr Baker: I am not oversimplifying it. You are not making any difference on the ground: that is my point.

Mrs Scallon: In order for there to be places for children, the places need to be —.

Mr Baker: It is not you, Janis; it is the Minister, the Department and the Education Authority. They are not delivering.

Mrs Scallon: To be fair, we have always said that it requires a significant amount of funding. That cannot be a surprise.

Mr Baker: I am surprised.

Mrs Scallon: The Committee cannot be surprised. I have said that since before the delivery plan went out, as has the Minister.

Mr Baker: You have portrayed it as though it has happened overnight —

Mrs Scallon: It needs a significant amount of funding. In terms of placements —.

Mr Baker: — or just the past two years; it has been like that for decades.

Mrs Scallon: If the places are not there and the places are not created, that makes it very difficult to place those children.

Mr Baker: That is why we need one-to-one —.

The Chairperson (Mr Mathison): May I come in, please, Danny?

Mr Baker: Sorry.

The Chairperson (Mr Mathison): Comments have to go through the Chair; otherwise, the meeting will descend into chaos.

Mrs Scallon: Sorry, Chair.

The Chairperson (Mr Mathison): I have tried to be fair with time for all members. All of this is connected, and it is all so huge. The operational and policy areas intersect. I understand that it is difficult, but I want to make sure that I am fair to every member.

Mr Brooks: Janis, you are right to say that things are being oversimplified. I think that that is largely because nuance does not get much traction on TikTok, but we will move on.

I agree with some elements of what Pat talked about. I am sometimes cynical about the proliferation of champions, commissioners and publicly funded lobby groups, albeit they are for some very worthy causes. It sometimes feels as though MLAs are outsourcing the work that politicians at different levels should be doing. I have some scepticism in that regard. Perhaps you could speak to the intentions behind the SEN champion, and whether the parameters of that role will be tightly drawn.

Mrs Scallon: That role is undefined as yet. It was included in response to some of the scrutiny reports and recommendations. However, as I said in my opening remarks, it is not an area that we are prioritising right now. The champion role needs to be well designed, with very tight parameters. As I said, a lot of people are champions of children with special educational needs, including parents. We have a lot of lobby groups out there. There are so many people who are champions. I want those people to come to the lived experience forum, which is the area in which needs can be championed, things can be road-tested and we can have that open discussion.

As I said, expert advisory panels have been stood up under other policy areas. We have asked: is this the right thing to do? This is a transformation programme. We cannot be static just because there is a plan on a page. It is about transformation and system change. It needs to remain agile and flexible. It needs to respond to things that happen in not just Education but other Departments. Why would we not have a SEN person on the expert advisory group on the curriculum rather than it being separate and distinct? We are keeping all of those areas under review. Tellingly, we have not yet stood up those areas under the enabling actions.

Mr Brooks: That input is vital. I take a different view from Pat's in that regard. The mental health champion, the Children's Commissioner and the autism reviewer all do very good and worthy work, and I have spoken to some of them. However, we are not here to rubber-stamp the views of an expert. Sometimes, Committees, and the Assembly in general, receive that advice and treat it as though it is word from on high that we must implement. That is not the case, and I would not want it to be the case here either.

I have not really engaged with the lived experience forum up to now. Maybe you can speak to that. Co-design is really important, because the voices and the lived experience of those who deal with the issue day in, day out need to be heard. That is a very important way in which for them to be heard.

Mrs Scallon: We were really keen to stand up the lived experience forum, but it is about how we run it. You could hand-pick people. You could ask for applications. There are very few people who do not have lived experience of special educational needs. If you are a parent, a SENCO, a teacher, a granny — whoever it might be — you will have that experience, because there are so many children with special educational needs. Those children are everywhere, and they grow into adults. There are so many people with lived experience, be that in lobby groups or among the experts, that we thought, "This needs to be an open forum. How can we manage that?". We simply do not have the battery power to have 1,000 people in a room, so how do we manage it? The intention is to have a digital platform — a SEN reform hub. There will be an open call. There will be no barriers to anybody being in that lived experience forum. We will run it on thematic areas, with an approach of, "Come if you want to". We could be doing something around transitions, the role of the SENCO, early intervention or autism. If people have an interest in any of those areas, they can come to talk to us. It is about 360 degree feedback on what we are doing and what the plans are. Does that feel right? How does it feel for you? We want school leaders, teachers and classroom assistants to come, because lived experience is different, depending on what role you play. That is the idea behind the lived experience forum. It is about having not a national conversation but a big, regular conversation with people so that we can keep them abreast of everything. In 2030, this will be a five-year-old document. We do not want people to be simply going back to something that was made five years ago; we want them to be kept abreast of what is happening and for it to be quite dynamic.

Mr Brooks: I appreciate that answer. There is a lot of scaremongering going on around one-to-one provision. The Minister has made it clear that it is about looking at what is best for children, what is the gold standard and what will be sustainable going forward.

Mrs Scallon: Absolutely.

Mr Brooks: It is not about drastic cuts or anything else. Really, if Sinn Féin wants the kind of education system that it is talking about, it is going to have to pay for it. Sinn Féin can go to its Minister, talk to him and make sure that the system is well resourced to deliver that.

Mr Baker: Maybe we should not go ahead with TransformED, which will cost tens of millions of pounds.

Mr Brooks: Talk to John.

The Chairperson (Mr Mathison): I ask all members to work with me and not to have exchanges across the table. Indicate if you want to come back in.

Ms Hunter: Thank you, panel, for being here. I have three questions, so I will try to be as brief as possible on each. One of the key outcomes that you want to get from SEN reform is around parents feeling confident and trusting the SEN system. That is a key goal. One of the biggest issues that I am hearing about in my constituency from parents of children with special educational needs is the fact that their children have been placed on reduced timetables. We have had a number of sessions on, and we have spoken to the EA about, the lack of data and monitoring. It is a profound issue. A child in my constituency — a child with autism — is only in school for half an hour a day. That is unacceptable. Will you update the Committee on what is being done on reduced timetables, within SEN transformation and reform? That would be helpful.

Mrs Scallon: Let me think about that, Cara. I do not want reduced timetables to become synonymous with children with special educational needs. As far as we know, there are children on reduced timetables —

Ms Hunter: For a multitude of reasons.

Mrs Scallon: — for a multitude of reasons. Having talked to ETI colleagues, who have their finger on the pulse, I know that the data is not there. We have to get a grasp of how that is recorded. You have to look at the reasons — there can be valid reasons — why a child is on a reduced timetable. Is a reduced timetable in the best interests of the child at that time? Is it that the physical environment is not suitable? If it is not suitable, that is what needs to be addressed. Is it because of something outside of the school environment? Half an hour a day sounds so little. The line is that children are better off at school, but, for some children, putting in a six-and-a-half-hour day might not be doable. There is also the legal position, and there could be medical exemptions. Do I have a dataset that tells me exactly how many children are on reduced timetables? No, but we do know about absenteeism, which is different.

Ms Hunter: Of course. There is a range of reasons why children are not attending school. Do you have any detail on how many children with special educational needs are currently on a reduced timetable?

Mrs Scallon: I do not think that that data is collected. We know about absenteeism, but details on reduced timetables are not formally reported on the school information management system (SIMS).

I can go back and check that. I am not responsible for that recording system; it would be on SIMS. I can take that back and ask about it for you.

Ms Hunter: That would be helpful.

Mrs Scallon: I am not aware that the data exists.

Ms Hunter: Yesterday, my colleague Colin McGrath, who is our health spokesperson, and I met a range of special school principals about the shortage of nurses in special school settings. Medical healthcare is being performed in the corridors of schools due to a lack of space. Do you have any comment to make on that? Can you update us on any work that you are doing on that?

Mrs Scallon: There has been extensive engagement. The policy and legislation sit with my colleague Deirdre Ward. I am aware that there have been quite a number of engagements with colleagues in the Department of Health. The Ministers and the permanent secretaries have engaged, and the EA has prioritised that area specifically. You might want to ask my colleague about it, but I am happy to write to you with an update from Deirdre. It is a huge risk for the EA. Tomas and I have spoken about it, and the EA has prioritised the issue because it is a huge risk.

We have known about the overcrowding in special schools for a very long time. The Minister acted quickly with the SEN capital investment programme and the special schools' plans of action. Again, a building cannot be built overnight, but getting it into the domain should help in the long term. Making sure that children are in the right placement will also be very useful. At ministerial level, there have been a number of engagements on nursing in special schools, and there are due to be future ministerial meetings on that.

Ms Hunter: Do I have time for one more question?

The Chairperson (Mr Mathison): Very brief.

Ms Hunter: I note that inclusion is a core value of SEN reform. The Caleb's Cause campaign wants to establish clear pathways for further training and education at post 16 and post 19. Can you update us on that? I am mindful that Caleb's Cause has an event later in the month, and I am curious about progress on that.

Mrs Scallon: At the minute, we have no funding to progress that action. However, we have worked closely with Department for the Economy colleagues, and I am aware that they have put in a bid to tranche 2 of the public-sector transformation fund, and we have supported that bid. We had input to the bid, and we will support the Department for the Economy on that. Once school stops, it falls to the Department for the Economy, but it is important for us to make sure that transition plans are in place as per the code of practice and the SEN policy statement. Those clarify that. Transition plans should be in place from the age of 14, and it is important that they are in place. DFE is doing a scoping exercise on all the pathways that are available to see what is suitable, what we need more of and what could be enhanced. We are working closely with our DFE colleagues, but we do not have any funding for the transitions piece.

Ms Hunter: That is good to know. Thank you.

The Chairperson (Mr Mathison): We have to draw a line there. That will be concerning news for some people who are watching the Committee, but I appreciate that transitions crosses a range of Departments. Without a doubt, the Committee's recommendations will look at something in that space.

Mr Burrows: I reiterate that reduced timetables should be captured on SIMS to give us a benchmark to work from.

The budget given to the Department of Education is insufficient. Does not having a proper budget allocation mean that a lot of the plans are really unfunded commitments? Can they be delivered?

Mrs Scallon: Sorry. Can you ask me that again?

Mr Burrows: With the current budget allocation, are the plans that you have presented for SEN transformation deliverable?

Mrs Scallon: We have said that we need £570 million to deliver SEN reform over the next five years. We do not have £570 million. We have the £27·5 million, and we can deliver on the plans for that, albeit that a lot of the projects have had to be scaled back to test and trial, which makes sense, to be fair. The cornerstones of reform are about transforming and enhancing the support model at stage 3 and the local impact teams at stage 2, and we are primarily concerned with getting direct resources into schools at stage 1. That should hopefully stem what we are seeing as a very unsustainable trajectory. That piece is deliverable, and it is important that we test and trial all those innovative actions, because we need to find out what works best and what fits best with stage 2 and stage 3.

Mr Burrows: You mentioned the massive rise in the number of children with special educational needs. Did you say that there were 70,000?

Mrs Scallon: There are 70,000 children in our system with special educational needs.

Mr Burrows: It takes a village to raise a child; it seems that the special educational needs issue is bigger than just education. An increasing number of children are coming to school with developmental issues; they are behind in key milestones. Is there a need for parenting interventions, including upskilling and coaching? We are now raising children in an environment where there are devices. I am not suggesting, by the way, that autism is created by them. I am talking about developmental issues that are now presenting. A principal told me that a child had a breakdown at school because their device was not available to be given to them — I was in a school when that happened — and the parent told the teacher that they dealt with that by giving the device to the child. Clearly, that cannot happen at school. Is there a need for coaching, skilling or upskilling?

Mrs Scallon: That reaches right across our SEN reform agenda, but one of our projects in the public-sector transformation fund is a parental engagement programme, which looks at that very thing. It is about working with parents to be able to support their children better. We are alive to that. However, from my experience — I am very well read in that area as well — sometimes that screen is an escape for the child from an environment that could be overwhelming. Again, there is something underneath that —

Mr Burrows: Yes, 100%.

Mrs Scallon: — to look at why the child was overwhelmed in the first place and why they felt the need to escape. That is just my view on that. However, we need engagement with parents, and we have a project and training to do that.

Mr Burrows: I asked a question before about local impact teams and did not get a clear answer. Are a number of staff working from home? I have been told that some school principals find that they cannot access the LITs because staff are working from home. Is that the case? Is there data on that? I have asked about that before, but I did not get it.

Mrs Scallon: I do not have any data on that. We would need to ask the EA how many staff are working at home. I am almost sure that they have a hybrid policy like ours, but I do not have a direct answer to that question. I do not have those figures in front of me.

Mr Burrows: I am just flagging that. I have no issue with people working from home if the service is delivered, but I have been told that an obstacle to contacting and accessing them is them working from home.

My final point is about school infrastructure and all the plans around transforming SEN. Let us look at the case of Sandelford Special School. Ultimately, it is a very good school, and the disruption to those children came down to the crumbling estate and the inability to grip issues quickly around mould and other things. The children were in and out, and then they were told that they did not need to move out. I was told that there were false narratives being put out, and then, the next thing, the children were out. That is about management and about gripping the estate. That is at the core of trying to give the best provision for children with special educational needs. Do you accept that we can have all the transformation, but the estate must be fit for purpose, and the procurement system must be fit for purpose?

A teacher or principal tells me that it costs them 400% more to fix mould if they go through the procurement service than it would if they were to use a local person. Those are the fundamentals that we can fix without spending more money. How do we have a procurement system in which the person who is on the list costs 400% more than a local trusted trader? What is going on with that?

The Chairperson (Mr Mathison): Please be brief. We have strayed from the brief.

Mrs Scallon: The Education Authority is the centre of procurement expertise. That point would need to be directed to the Education Authority. The Department is not responsible for procurement.

Mr Burrows: I get that, but there is a problem to solve. All those things are linked. We can have all the transformation, but, if you cannot get your building maintained, children with special educational needs could be significantly set back when they are removed, as happened previously.

The Chairperson (Mr Mathison): We need to draw that to a close. We are out of time. Time has beaten us. Thank you for your time. We covered a range of topics there. As I said at the start, we are trying to get evidence for our inquiry. It is difficult sometimes to stick to all the issues in the briefing, but we will have plenty of opportunity to revisit all those issues over the next number of weeks.

Thank you all for your time. We wish you all the very best in your new role, Janis.

Mrs Scallon: Thank you very much.