Official Report: Minutes of Evidence

The Chairperson (Mr Mathison): Joining us today are Deirdre Ward, director for SEN strategic policy at the Department of Education, and Dr Tomas Adell, chief transformation officer at the Education Authority (EA). Before we do anything else, we apologise for the delay. We had lengthy discussions on a range of issues at the start of the agenda, which ran considerably over time. We apologise for keeping you and thank you for your patience.

It is probably worth highlighting that there was a long discussion about the letter that has been issued by the Children's Law Centre (CLC) and other stakeholders. It is likely that there will be questions from members on that because you are here. However, this briefing is also a key element of our SEN inquiry as regards some of the early intervention and transformation funding issues. I hope that we get the opportunity to hear about that aspect as well.

At this stage, I will hand over to you for opening remarks or a presentation of up to 10 minutes, and then we will move into questions and answers.

Ms Deirdre Ward (Department of Education): Good afternoon, and thanks to the Committee for giving us the opportunity to update you on the SEN transformation projects, which have been funded by the public-sector transformation fund. The Department was successful in securing £27·5 million over four years for SEN transformation through the transformation board in March 2025. That has allowed us to kick-start the delivery of a number of priority actions in the SEN reform delivery plan. Those projects are the focus of today's evidence session.

Members will be aware that the transformation fund was initially secured to take forward 14 projects. In December 2025, the senior responsible owner (SRO) determined that a stocktake review would be helpful to ensure deliverability, cohesiveness across all the projects and complementarity with the Education Authority's emerging enhanced support model. Implementation was therefore paused from December 2025 until April 2026.

The stocktake has now been completed, and a revised approach has been agreed by the Minister and the programme board. The revised approach was submitted to the public-sector transformation board on Monday. I am happy to report that the transformation board approved the new shape of the programme on Tuesday. To summarise the outcome of the stocktake review, it has been determined that most projects will continue, a small number will be reshaped or scaled back, and two will not proceed at this point.

I will now provide a brief overview of the revised approach. A number of priority actions in the SEN reform delivery plan were selected for inclusion in the bid. They focused on early intervention, transforming the support model for children with a statement of SEN, building a skilled education workforce that is confident in meeting the needs of all children and creating a more inclusive education system. Those priorities have not changed.

We have a range of test and learn projects that relate to early intervention. It is proposed that the suite of five early childhood intervention projects be reduced to four. First, a parental support programme will be delivered to parents of young children with SEN, providing information, training and support to help them to support their child's development and to establish networks of peer support. We will also introduce a SEN-specific element to the Getting Ready to Learn programme for parents of preschool children.

Secondly, the two- to three-year-olds programme for children with additional needs will continue as an extension of the former Belfast-wide early years project, focusing solely on two- to three-year-olds and their families. The reshaped project commenced in September and will run for three years.

Thirdly, a SEN support learning trial will see the employment of dedicated teachers to support preschool, P1 and P2 children who are pre-code or at stage 1 of the code of practice in 28 educational settings over a two-year period, providing small group or one-to-one support where necessary. That project will include funding for access to resource and therapeutic interventions.

Lastly, the SEN early years assistant training programme will offer 360 funded accredited training placements over three years, which will be delivered by the further education regional colleges. That project seeks to test the impact of various accredited courses on classroom practice, the confidence of classroom assistants and the outcomes for children. The project started in January, and 114 classroom assistants have completed the first tranche of training.

The fifth early childhood project was the establishment of early years intervention hubs. That project will not proceed at present as it was deemed to be undeliverable within the time frame. The other project that was planned to be taken forward under early intervention was the speech, language and communication (SLC) intervention project, which would be led by the Education Authority, working in partnership with the five health trusts. Training and resources for preschools, primary schools and post-primary schools will be developed to support SLC development. Bespoke resources and training will be developed for the growing Irish-medium education sector.

The other project that will not progress is the enhanced nurture support project. That project sought to build on existing nurture group provision. There are issues with the financial stability of nurture groups. While options to stabilise them have been developed, the project is no longer deemed to be deliverable within the time frame of the transformation funding, given the need to stand up projects in 2026.

The enhanced support model for children with a statement of SEN is one of the linchpins of SEN reform. Public consultation on the proposed way forward commenced on 24 March, with a phased implementation to commence in September 2026. The Committee received a briefing on the enhanced support model on 18 February, so I do not intend to focus on that today. To complement the enhanced support model, and focusing on support for children with a statement of SEN, seven special schools will be established as resource hubs. Collectively, they will support 70 local mainstream schools by providing in-school training, modelling, good-practice strategies and pedagogy in real time and in a responsive way. That will assess the impact of that model, which operates effectively in other European countries.

Building a skilled education workforce that is confident in meeting the needs of all children underpins the SEN reform agenda. Having listened to previous sessions, I know that that is also an emerging key finding from the Committee's inquiry. We have linked in with TransformEd to ensure that SEN is incorporated into its teacher professional learning framework, and we are working with EA colleagues to design SEN-specific training for mainstream and special schools.

Fundamental to the success and long-term sustainability of the enhanced support model is investment in our classroom assistants. Ulster University has recently been commissioned to undertake a focused piece of work that will inform the design of future employment-model and career-progression pathways for classroom assistants.

The creation of a more inclusive education system is another underpinning principle of SEN reform. The profile of our pupils is changing, and our schools have to adapt to ensure that they support all learners. Two of the projects funded by the transformation fund focus on inclusion. The inclusion capacity-building programme will start with an inclusive-education symposium in September 2026, delivered in partnership with the Middletown Centre for Autism. It will involve academic experts, the Education and Training Inspectorate (ETI) and local schools. New resources on inclusive practice will be developed for the teacher professional learning platform that is currently being commissioned by the EA under TransformEd.

Finally, the inclusive play programme will provide a whole-school intervention to embed the understanding of inclusive play. It will be supported by one of our our delivery partners, Playboard NI. The programme will be delivered to 48 settings during the lifetime of the project. Cohort 1 is scheduled to commence in this school term.

I hope that that has provided members with an overview of the current position. We are happy to take questions but, first, Tomas has a few comments to make.

Dr Tomas Adell (Education Authority): It is right to make some comments on the CLC letter to provide further clarity from our perspective. They might help answer some of the Committee's questions going forward.

First, we agree with those who say that SEN delivery is not good enough. We have said that over and over again. That is not because of the staff or the people who work in those services; it is because we do not provide the staff or the people working in the schools — in education — with the right tools to deliver the best outcomes for children with SEN. Fundamentally, therefore, we do not disagree with the starting point; we agree with it. Children do not receive the support that they need, when they need it, and that is not good enough. That is, fundamentally, the burning platform of change. The enhanced support model seeks to address that.

Before making a couple of comments about the enhanced support model, I want to say that we are addressing many other things. For example, the digitisation of the statutory assessment system is already providing significantly better services. Currently, the average waiting time for the statutory assessment process is 24 weeks, with the target being 26 weeks. As of last Friday afternoon, 30 cases had been waiting for more than 26 weeks. We get 500 to 600 applications every month. With the new system, we issue the first four statements 11 weeks or 12 weeks after receiving a referral being received. That is a significant improvement on previous years. Things are happening. Transformation has a positive impact when we do it right.

It is important to say what the enhanced support model is and what it is not. It does not change the legal framework or the legal protection of children and young people with SEN. It does not change the statutory assessment process: referrals come, as they have come before, and people can make referrals in the same way. The assessment advice in the statements does not change, and the fact that there will be a specified and quantified outcome, as in the current legal framework, does not change. The right to appeal to tribunal does not change. The protections for parents and children remain the same.

What does change is the delivery of services on the front line. The CLC letter addresses five issues: capacity in schools; capacity in the EA and local impact teams (LITs); the lack of cooperation between different delivery actors; refusals of applications and resulting tribunals; and the failure to provide specific SEN provisions. Tribunals are a separate issue. Apart from that, we agree with the other four points. Fundamentally, they are the core failures of the SEN delivery system. That is what we want to address with the enhanced support model. We want to enhance capacity in the education sector. We want to enhance capacity in stage 2 services to provide better services earlier. We want to provide that education and ensure that schools have much better support in the first place so that they are able to deliver support to children when they need it and in a sustainable way. We want to address the lack of cooperation between support sectors and to have healthcare at the table, delivering in schools. We want statements to specifically address the SEN provisions in order to help the specific child, so that it is not a generic statement but states, "This child has these needs, therefore they will receive this support". Those are the fundamental principles of the enhanced support model, so we do not think that we are too far off what the CLC and others are asking for.

The enhanced support model will not shift legal duties from the EA onto schools. The legal duty for SEN delivery will remain with the EA. There is no shifting. We are not delegating duties to anyone else. The duty will remain with us, where it currently is. The enhanced support model does, however, focus on individual children. The starting point is children and how to support them individually in an education setting in order to get the best outcomes. That is the core and foundational issue. That is why we are having a public consultation at the moment, which is basically about what things will look like for the child. It is absolutely right that we have that consultation so that we hear views on that. When we know what people have said to us and have analysed those responses, we will take the next steps in deciding what to do.

By Friday, we had received just under 2,000 responses to the consultation, which is very encouraging. It means that people are engaging and that they want to speak. We have ongoing engagement, with an event this week and others for the next few weeks, for which there has been significant sign-up. That means that there is good engagement and good discussions. There have been many comments about how we should do things differently. We do not have a preset agenda. We want to listen and hear how we can deliver better services. That is the purpose of the public consultation.

Once we have finished the public consultation, we will analyse the responses and see how we can best support children and young people with SEN. At that point, it will be right to work with staff on how to change their employment models, if that is warranted. As I have said on record at the Committee many times, we want to improve the role of classroom assistants.

We want to create career pathways, development opportunities and rewards for the work that they do. The work of classroom assistants is invaluable. That will remain. I have said it before, and I will say it again: that is not a question for us. How we do that depends on the model to support children and young people. We need to get an idea of what the model should look like and then we will work on the details of staff contracts, for example. We will, of course, engage with anyone who wants to engage with us. I am happy to take any questions on that or anything other part of transformation.

The Chairperson (Mr Mathison): Thank you. I appreciate the briefing and the fact that some of the issues in the Children's Law Centre correspondence were addressed. I will attempt the impossible and try to cover both, but they are not disconnected, so that is worth reflecting on. I will highlight a few things from my initial reflections and see how you respond.

I was at the consultation event on Thursday, on a panel with you, Tomas, and had lots of conversations with lots of stakeholders from the system. My takeaway from that was that there was substantial openness to reform and change. It is important to be fair on that. There were lots of voices saying, "We know there is a need for change. The system is not working". There were also lots of great examples of good practice that is working really well. I want to be fair on that. However, that was almost equally balanced by a huge amount of fear and anxiety about what is coming. Teachers, in particular, were saying that they really feel overwhelmed. That came through particularly from the primary sector. There was a sense that they feel that there may be more flexibility and scope available at post-primary level for some of the different models. Often, P1 and P2 kids come in with really complex needs, and they were saying, "We just need help". It is about trying to balance those two things. I put that down as a note at the start.

A lot of what you have said, Tomas, could be very reassuring to people listening: there is no set agenda, you are in listening mode and the consultation is live. I heard concerns in a number of conversations about the September start date being flagged. That goes hand in hand with the new SEN regulations coming through the Committee. The Department had said, when initially presenting them, that it was keen to have them ready to go for September. How do we marry the fact that you are saying, "We are in listening mode. We are working on a new model. We will engage" with a September start date. Can you say anything to that? What will what is kicking off in September look like if we are really quite far away from being clear on what a new model will look like?

Ms Ward: I will start, and I am sure that Tomas will come in. They are already delivering different practices, and you will have heard some examples of those. The impact that the parents' stories made on how things were better for their children —

The Chairperson (Mr Mathison): They were very persuasive. I am very clear on that.

Ms Ward: — with alternate models of support. Did we miss an opportunity by not including a primary school that is providing alternate models of support? Yes, and we will learn from that as we move forward in our communication. However, it was an opening discussion on what the new system will look like. For September, there are already around 150 schools doing something different. It is about working with those schools to understand the outcomes that they are getting and really understand what it is that they are doing differently that is working really well, so that we can disseminate that to others to think about.

The Chairperson (Mr Mathison): I do not want to cut across you, but I am really conscious of time. That is entirely our doing and not yours. For anyone listening to this conversation, can I check something for clarity. When you say, "a September start date", do you mean that, system-wide, when teachers arrive at their classes on 1 September, there will be a new code of practice, a new model of support and a new way of working, even though they currently do not know what those will look like?

Ms Ward: No.

Dr Adell: No. The proposed September start date — again, proposed — is the start of implementation, not the finished product. That is when they will start to work on the details of implementation. For example, take the primary-school sector. I had one primary-school teacher approach me after the event on Thursday. He was from a small rural primary school with a fairly small number of children and a small number of children with statements. That school cannot recruit. They find it difficult to get people who are not permanent, because it is hard to recruit to rural areas. They want to do radical, different things by employing one extra teacher in addition to the classroom-assistant-provided support — you cannot remove that from the school because of the support that it has — to provide support for other teachers and to support specific interventions for specific children within the remit of the school leadership.

That is exactly in line with the enhanced support model. The enhanced support model allows that flexibility to create different ways of working in different settings. The start date of 1 September will allow us to start that journey with the schools that are coming to us to say, "We want to do this now". It will not force the change on people on 1 September; it starts a discussion and starts it for those who want to start now. I cannot imagine that anyone in that rural community — parents or teachers — would have an issue with a specialist teacher coming in — an additional member of staff — to provide for the children and help with those class sizes in the first place. That is purely a good thing. The enhanced support model will allow us to make those changes. The current system does not give us the flexibility or freedom to do that.

The Chairperson (Mr Mathison): OK. That may provide some reassurance to people.

I will ask just one more question because I am conscious that Committee members want to come in. This is about the sequencing and reflects what you said in your initial presentation, Deirdre, about all the pilot programmes and plans around the early intervention measures that you are looking at. I genuinely struggle to get my head around the sequencing. Everything in the early intervention space seems very much to be about development, pilots, testing and gathering evidence. I accept that a good evidence base is a good starting point for anything, but the meaningful and significant interventions that we have now — the LITs — went right in and started. They went straight in with a new model, a new system and a whole new process for how pre-statement support was provided. We need to be honest: there are real concerns about the resourcing of those LITs, their staff complement, the availability of a workforce to provide the specialist input, input from Health into the LITs, the bureaucracy and admin associated with them and the workload associated with special educational needs coordinators (SENCOs).

We are aware of those issues — they are well rehearsed — but we have gone straight in at that level and are looking what happens after a statement as the next action. All the stuff that is upstream that would hopefully help us to get a pipeline of children coming into the system who had been identified as having additional needs early and who get the support that they need is happening at some other time. We do not seem to be there yet. Why has it been sequenced in that way? Anything I have ever heard about SEN, SEN reform and the need for change has been about, "Early intervention, early intervention, early intervention", until it almost becomes a cliché, so why is it being done in that order?

Dr Adell: There are two kinds of intervention, both of which are very important. One is intervention in the code at stage 1. Early intervention in relation to age is equally important, providing an intervention more quickly for children with quite a significant SEN need rather than providing it at a later stage. Whenever they work well, LITs can provide that. Children who receive support from LITs have good outcomes, but there is a capacity issue. The removal of the gatekeeping functions and the artificial numbers that schools can refer to LITs have exposed a huge demand-capacity gap. We expected there to be a gap, but the gap was much bigger than we expected. There were thousands of children waiting for LIT services. The question that needs to be addressed is whether that is a failure of LIT services or a failure on our part for not providing capacity for the teams to do their jobs. It is a failure, over many years, to invest in stage 2 services. We know now that that is needed. The evidence for how it is needed and provided is much better. We absolutely must address that.

The Chairperson (Mr Mathison): Is that investment going to come? A number of months ago, your colleague Dale Hanna sat before the Committee and essentially said, "Once we open the door to this, we expect a massive flow of referrals, which will highlight exactly how great the demand is". He has been proven to be correct, but, now that we know the level of demand, the next question is whether the resource will come in to meet it. If we are going to deliver reform, but resource only half of what we want to do, then it does not feel like we are setting it up to succeed.

Dr Adell: Deirdre can comment on some of those things. The hand that I have been dealt in EA is to provide the best service that we can with the funding that we have. In the autumn, we had a discussion here about value for money. Currently, I am not assured of value for money, because the way in which we provide support does not make the best use of the resources that we have. We must ensure that the funding that we have is distributed as best it can be. Then we must address how much resource we allocate to SEN. Those are not separate matters, and we should not focus on just one. LITs provide better value for money, but there is not sufficient money. If we provide an enhanced support model that is properly integrated with LITs, and if healthcare is involved in all of that, the value-for-money benefit for all children across all stages of SEN is significant, because those teams will be much better resourced to deal with the children as they appear in school.

We want to create a whole-school environment that is much better equipped — we talked about this before — and allows us to provide admin resource for schools to release SENCOs to do education work, because that is what they are skilled in. Currently, we have to overload them with classroom assistants, often on a short-term basis, so that the SENCO can do paperwork. Financially, that makes no sense. It makes far more sense to remove paperwork from the SENCO, releasing them to do the educational intervention in SEN that they are expert in — that is what they should be doing — and have others do the paperwork. However, that requires us to think differently about how we plan the whole model. In the current system, we do not have the freedom to do it. A process based on an enhanced support model and different LIT services would allow us to change that. If you — I am looking at all sides of the room — were to give me significantly more money, I might be able to do such things, but, in the absence of that, we must transform services to give us the freedom, in essence, to provide that targeted support. That is where we are.

The Chairperson (Mr Mathison): I will have to draw a line there, because I know that other members who will come in might pick up on those issues.

Deirdre, when it comes to the transformation funding, is there any risk of loss of money?

Ms Ward: No.

The Chairperson (Mr Mathison): That is secured.

Ms Ward: That has been secured —

The Chairperson (Mr Mathison): A yes or no answer is grand. That is secured; that is good. That is all that I wanted to know.

Ms Ward: — and it is for Tomas and me to decide how best to deploy it to support the transformation activities.

The Chairperson (Mr Mathison): If the other issues had not landed in our agenda today, that would have been my first question. I am reassured to hear that.

Mr Sheehan: I thank both of you for coming in. Earlier, when we discussed the statement and the letter released by the Children's Law Centre, the unions and other stakeholders, I made the point that, on any issue relating to children with special needs, my go-to organisation is the Children's Law Centre. With Rachel Hogan, in particular, and others from the centre, it is the best organisation at dealing with special needs issues. How did you feel this morning when you saw the letter and the statement from the Children's Law Centre?

Dr Adell: I worked with the Children's Law Centre for more than a decade. I highly respect the Children's Law Centre, and I know that it is absolutely passionate about improving outcomes for children; I share that sentiment. I was disappointed, to be honest, because I have been trying for a long time to meet the Children's Law Centre to discuss the enhanced support model and the transformation, but we have not yet had a meeting; we have one scheduled for 11 May. Some of the things in the letter could be clarified by discussion. It is well intended, and I agree with the analysis of the problems; I do not agree with the analysis of what the enhanced support model will do. For example, it does not change the legal duties, and, through engagement, we could clarify that quite easily. It does not change the legal duties; we do not delegate to schools.

Mr Sheehan: You see, Tomas, here is the problem: the Children's Law Centre did not send that letter to the Minister or release that statement without a great deal of thought and having done its own due diligence. The Children's Law Centre is not an organisation that does something on a whim. Without a doubt, a lot of thought was put into that.

Dr Adell: Again, I am not disagreeing with that, but let us have a discussion to see how we can address those things. The aim that the letter addresses is the same as ours. We want the same outcome, so, if we have not expressed ourselves well or we have got things wrong, let us work together on how to fix them.

Mr Sheehan: That is OK. We all want the same outcome in that we all want the best for all our children — those with special needs and those without — but the question is how to go about it. The Children's Law Centre says that the attempt to get the new framework through ramstam is not working, that it is creating more problems and that aspects of it may be unlawful. How do you in the Education Authority deal with that, particularly given the organisation that it has come from?

Dr Adell: When it comes to unlawfulness, I fundamentally disagree with its assessment. I believe that it must —.

Mr Sheehan: Are you a lawyer?

Dr Adell: Yes. I have a doctorate in human rights law.

Mr Sheehan: OK.

Dr Adell: That is not my role. I am not a lawyer in the EA, but I have a doctorate in human rights. My background is in academia.

Mr Sheehan: Do you accept that there are other legal experts in the Children's Law Centre?

Dr Adell: Yes. That is what I mean. I want to sit down and discuss it with them. I do not understand how they got to that understanding. If I understand that, either it will be that I have got something wrong, in which case I will happily change it — that is why we are having a public consultation — or, if they have misunderstood something, it may be because we have not expressed it well enough. I want to work with them to understand why they have reached that outcome, so that we can address it. My intention is not to shift legal duties to create anything unlawful. We need to understand how we have got there. From reading the letter, I do not understand how we got to that position. I am more than happy to speak to the Children's Law Centre in private and in public to figure out how we have got here.

Mr Sheehan: One of the issues, which we have spoken about here on numerous occasions, is that the model that is put in place, whichever one that is, will not work properly unless there is collaboration with the Health Department.

Dr Adell: I could not agree more.

Mr Sheehan: It is absolutely clear that there has been only minimal collaboration and cooperation between Health and Education. We witnessed that recently in the debacle around the summer scheme for special schools. The two Ministers could not lift the phone to each other, but, when they did, it was sorted out in five minutes. Can you tell me what the level of collaboration is between the Education Authority and the Health Department? Can you give me chapter and verse of the contact and engagement that there has been, the level that it has been at, who it has been with and what issues were discussed? Can you give that to the Committee?

Dr Adell: Of course.

Mr Sheehan: Over the past two years.

Dr Adell: I can definitely give you the information from when I started. To find information from before that, I will have to investigate. I have contact records of everything that I have done. We will have to speak to others in the EA. There have been a number of freedom of information requests on the matter. We are compiling information in a clear format right now. I have no problem sharing that with the Committee.

I will separate out a couple of things. I have the greatest respect for my Department of Health colleagues. As you know, I spent a long time at the Department of Health. There have been particular issues around nursing and our having contact about nursing in special schools and in a wider healthcare setting. That is different from engagement around allied health professions' engagement in special schools and in supporting children with SEN. I have met the Chief Allied Health Professions Officer, as has my team, on a number of occasions. She spoke at our conference last Thursday. We have a real idea of what we want to develop. For example, we are looking at the EA funding some training places for speech and language therapy in the longer term, with an agreement that those staff would work purely in education to help us develop that agenda.

Mr Sheehan: That has nothing to do with collaboration with Health. If the EA is going to employ speech and language therapists, that is completely separate from collaboration with the Health Department.

Dr Adell: That is working together and finding solutions to workforce problems. It is finding models of delivery of allied health profession officers in an education setting that will meet the needs of children in that setting. There has been good engagement with the Chief Allied Health Professions Officer.

Mr Sheehan: OK. When it comes to the Children's Services Co-operation Act 2015 —

The Chairperson (Mr Mathison): This needs to be a brief final remark.

Mr Sheehan: — what discussions have there been around pooling resources between Health and Education?

Ms Ward: There have been discussions on that. There is ongoing engagement with both Tomas —.

Mr Sheehan: What is the outcome of those discussions, Deirdre? We can sit here and discuss all day, but, if there are no outcomes, it is a waste of time.

Dr Adell: I am being open and honest here. There are no funding offers for any healthcare interventions in special schools or for SEN provisions. We are trying to find out how we can provide the best support, however that is funded. I want to provide the best value for money and the best outcomes for children with the money that is provided to us.

Mr Sheehan: That is OK, but the Children's Services Co-operation Act is there for a reason, which is to ensure that Departments cooperate with one another and pool resources where necessary and where there is a need for input from both Departments.

Ms Ward: There are discussions, for example, on how we will take forward some interim solutions to providing nursing support in special schools. We are working those through. There is collaboration, and there are some innovative ideas about how we might bring in that support together between us, the EA and the Department of Health.

The Chairperson (Mr Mathison): Members may pick up those issues to make sure that we cover them in enough detail.

Mrs Mason: Tomas, it is OK to agree with the essence of the letter and that things are not right now. You come here time and again, and you put your hands up and say that. The concern is about where it is heading to and the changes that have been made. It is OK to say that this is where you want to get to, and it all sounds brilliant in theory — we have said that — but it is about the reality on the ground. You expressed your disappointment about the letter from the Children's Law Centre. Tomas, this is not the first time that we have heard such arguments. We have heard them time and again from people sitting in the seats that you are sitting in now, and we have all heard them time and again when we have visited schools. Therefore, none of what the Children's Law Centre is saying is new. It should be Richard Pengelly and Paul Givan sitting here answering these questions. I know that it is you who comes and has to take it. How many warnings do we need? How many times will they have to hear this — time and time and time again — before some sort of action is taken?

You mentioned getting statements through quicker. That can be seen as a positive, and I will take that. What is on those statements? Are those children being statemented correctly? Are they getting the support that they need from that statement? I will give you an example. Just last night, I had a call about a child being placed in a mainstream school with learning support. The child is non-verbal and has extremely complex needs, and there was a multidisciplinary meeting about that child. The educational psychologist had no doubt that the child had severe learning difficulties (SLD), and the EA agreed. The child's school needs a classroom assistant to help the child, who has serious needs. After that meeting, a few days later, the EA phoned the parent and the school and said that, after having a think about the situation, it did not really think, in hindsight, that the child has SLD. It said that it would put down that the child had "moderate learning difficulties (MLD)" instead. I am no expert and do not have a degree in anything to diagnose that, but, when I see the list, I can see that it is a case of severe learning difficulties. Why would that happen? The suspicion is that it is known that that child is not in the right place and does not have the right support. That child is being treated as a number on a spreadsheet. It is a case of, "Get them into a place and make sure that the statement says the right thing". That is the suspicion. Can you say anything that will change that suspicion for me, the parents, the school and the child?

Dr Adell: Honestly, I probably cannot because there is a lack of trust. Obviously, I cannot comment on that particular child, and I will not pretend that I can.

Mrs Mason: That is only one child. There will be lots of examples.

Dr Adell: I will say this, as I have said many times before: contact us about those children, and we will look into it. Do we get things wrong? Yes. We get things wrong regularly. Do we have any systems in EA to say, or is there any pressure from me or my senior team, that placement and numbers are more important than the right outcomes? Absolutely categorically not. Getting the right placement for a child is the reason why we are in our jobs. Getting the right support for a child is what we do. There is no pressure to get placements done for the sake of numbers. My primary concern is getting the best outcome for the child.

Mrs Mason: Tomas, I accept that from you, but can you understand why there is suspicion that that is what is happening?

Dr Adell: Absolutely; 100%. I understand.

Mrs Mason: Can you therefore understand why the Children's Law Centre is saying, "Whoa, hold on a wee second. Let's halt. Let's go back to the drawing board and look at it"?

Dr Adell: Absolutely. I hear what you are saying, but there are two things that I will say about that. First, things go wrong, and, as soon as we hear about them, we try to address them. We get many letters and comments from parents about when we have got it right. Most children with SLD are placed in the right —.

Mrs Mason: Tomas, what about those children for whom you are not getting it right?

Dr Adell: We need to fix the support for those children, but that is exactly why we believe that transformation is required. If we keep on doing the same thing, we will fundamentally get the same results.

Mrs Mason: Those are new changes coming in. You said yourself that the statementing process is a change that is being made. There is a clear example of how that is not working.

Dr Adell: I would contend strongly that the cases that have been completed on the new system are not those of one of those children. I would have to look into the detail of that, but we are issuing at 11 weeks because we cut bureaucracy and created smoother systems not because assessments are skimped on.

Mrs Mason: Do you accept that teachers, principals, schools, classroom assistants and parents are at absolute breaking point?

Dr Adell: Yes.

Mrs Mason: Where is the light at the end of the tunnel? When they see letters such as the one that came this morning, it does not fill anybody with any hope.

Dr Adell: That is exactly why we need to transform. If we do not transform, we will not have an end to those letters. If we keep on doing the same thing, we will get the same results. If we do the same thing over and over again, we will get the same results over and over again. We must change what we do, otherwise we will never improve. I am absolutely passionate about improving the outcomes of children with SEN.

Mrs Mason: I have no doubt about that. I am not questioning that.

Dr Adell: I know that no one is questioning that, but we need to make those changes so that we can fix the issues and not continually face this question. Undoubtedly, come summer and autumn, we will have many more of those stories. That is why we need to fix it.

The Chairperson (Mr Mathison): Final point, Cathy. We need to draw a line.

Mrs Mason: The direction in which this is going is not right, and we have heard that time and again. It is too fast. The system is not ready for it; schools are not ready for it. Schools are not getting the support. Why are we continuing to fire on ahead with this, when we are hearing from everywhere that it needs to halt?

Dr Adell: Because, currently, we are failing every day.

Mrs Mason: So, we just continue doing what we are doing.

The Chairperson (Mr Mathison): I am not sure that that was what Tomas said.

Dr Adell: I said the opposite, actually.

The Chairperson (Mr Mathison): He said the opposite.

Mrs Mason: No, but we continue with the changes that we are making that are creating those issues.

Dr Adell: The changes are not creating the issues.

Mrs Mason: There is an example that they are.

The Chairperson (Mr Mathison): Cathy, I am going to bring Danny in now.

Mr Baker: Thank you, Chair. The Children's Law Centre letter, which I read this morning, is damning, and people should take stock. Clearly, the foundations are not there, and it does not want the mistakes of the past to be repeated.

I will talk of my frustrations from having been on this Committee. I can go as far back as two years when I kept asking for the SEN regulations and kept being told that they would be here soon. I asked the Minister and officials, but they kept being put back, and then we eventually got them. A lot of the groups are reading through them now and seeing the speed of the proposed changes, because it is not just SEN reform. It is also in TransformED. Many other consultations are coming to teachers, and they are completely swamped. The schools are not ready, so you are going to create a situation that makes it worse, despite having the best intentions.

There has to be a stop, a reset and an opening of that communication with the likes of the Children's Law Centre. It is not just the Children's Law Centre; the teaching unions and many other stakeholders are saying the same thing. The Chair said that there have been positives, and people have said that, but those are in equal measure to things that are not working. We have heard from SENCOs that the portal is not quite working. They are under stress and pressure as well. It cannot be a case of, "We're doing this, and we're just going to plough on through because we've seen some improvements". There are definitely issues there. I am no expert, but the evidence to the Committee's inquiry from SENCOs was damning.

I am not surprised by what the Children's Law Centre put out this morning. I think that we were all expecting something to happen at some point. You need to take stock. I cannot speak for them, and I am sure that they will clarify. I am sure that you have all been talking for a very long time, because I have seen it with the issue of restrain and seclusion as well. The Children's Law Centre and the Children's Commissioner were completely ignored by the Minister. They are trying to get engagement, so we cannot just sit and say, "They're not at the table, so we are not getting to talk to them". That does not cut it.

I know that I have run on a wee bit, but, Tomas, you asked me to judge you in a year's time. I take the point that I asked these questions of you back in early September and that we are not at a year yet, but the fundamental problems that I see coming through my constituency office are children not being placed in the right setting and children being offered places that do not exist. That does not happen to mainstream children. Children then go into a setting and end up on reduced timetables. No one is even taking stock of those children. Nobody from the EA and the Department knows how many children are missing out on school. That is a scandal of epic proportions, and nobody is prioritising that. I have not seen that improvement because of what I have seen coming through my constituency door and what people ask of me for their children.

You are not quite at the year. What is your assessment of what I outlined from back in September to where you are heading now? Is it going to be better or will it be just the same?

Dr Adell: The three things you mentioned are three things that trouble me massively. I cannot put it a different way.

Mr Baker: I get that.

Dr Adell: When it comes to the placement of children, do we intentionally place children in the wrong setting? Categorically not.

Mr Baker: The problem with that is —. I am sorry to come across you. Cathy gave you just one scenario; I have others as well. I am not saying that people are not trying their best, but, when it comes to choices, there tends to be pressure applied to parents. They will come to me and say, "Well, I was told not to put that down, because if I do, I will definitely not get that". To me, that is a bit of manipulation, because there is probably a worry about getting children off a spreadsheet. I know that that sounds very crude, but that is the way that it comes across. Then the child does not end up in the right setting, then they end up on a reduced timetable, and then they sit at home completely lost, but, based on the records, they are placed in a school.

Dr Adell: It worries me greatly. What I am saying is that there is no intentionality behind it. Whether you trust me or not, there is no such pressure on the statutory assessment team to place people just to get them off a spreadsheet.

Ms Ward: I will say — sorry, Tomas — that considerable work is going on to increase capacity so that there are more opportunities for placement right across the ecosystem.

Mr Baker: How many children are not going to be placed at the same time as their peers this year?

Dr Adell: I cannot answer that at this point.

Mr Baker: It is going to be in the hundreds.

Dr Adell: The reality is that the number of places we have for children does not match the number of children who need places. That equation does not add up, which is fundamentally the problem.

Mr Baker: But it is always for the same cohort of children and families. There is always a place for mainstream children.

Dr Adell: If you are asking me how we fix some of those things, and if you want radical solutions, I think that we need to think differently. If you want SEN children in all schools, we need to make provision in the school numbers for SEN children in all schools. If SEN children, number-wise, always come at the end, schools will be full. As an authority, we can only work within the legislative context that we find ourselves in, which means —.

Mr Baker: So would a SEN-first approach to placement work?

Dr Adell: Whether or not it is SEN first, we need to think about the numbers. We have talked many times about the fact that some schools have more SEN children than other schools, and we can argue about the reasons for that. One reason is that those schools are good at it and, therefore, attract more such children, which is good.

Mr Baker: No, I actually think that it is —.

The Chairperson (Mr Mathison): We are going to have to bring this to a conclusion.

Mr Baker: That is 100%, Chair.

It boils down to the fact that school leaders have been doing the heavy lifting to keep our schools going. Is the reason why you see that —? There are schools — not to single out a particular sector — that will not entertain having children with additional needs in unit for specialist provision on their grounds. That is so clear.

The Chairperson (Mr Mathison): This is the final, final comment.

Dr Adell: If you can solve some of those issues, such as how we count SEN children in the numbers, we will solve a lot the issues around wrong placements. Sorry, they are not "wrong placements" — "suboptimal placements" is a better way to put it, because they are not wrong.

Mr Baker: Have SEN-first placements ever seriously been looked at?

The Chairperson (Mr Mathison): Danny, we will pick that up another time. We really are up against it.

Mr Baker: OK. Thank you, Chair.

Mrs Guy: Thank you, folks. Where to start? I think that the right thing to do is have you address the central question that CLC asked in its letter. It has characterised how things are right now on the pace of change. It mentioned the:

Nobody is questioning the fact that we need reform. There is a fundamental question over the pace of that reform, how it is coming through at the minute, and the capacity in schools and the wider sector to meaningfully engage so that they can have trust and confidence that what you are doing will roll out in the way that it needs to in order to deliver the impacts that we all want to see. Do you agree that there should be a pause right now to allow people the opportunity to do this better or in a way that builds their confidence, or can you make a case for continuing at the same pace and in the way that you are doing it already?

Dr Adell: I have two comments on pausing it. Pausing now would be really dangerous, for two reasons. I am not saying that we should not reflect: this is about stopping. One is that the current model does not provide as good outcomes for children and young people as we could provide, so, every day that we allow the current model to continue, we are agreeing that children should not have the best possible outcomes. That is a position that I find very difficult to deal with. Second, the current model of assigning hours for classroom assistants is not sustainable. The Education Authority is in the position that, in 12 to 18 months' time, we will have to seriously start rationing classroom assistants, because we cannot employ them.

Mrs Guy: I do not want to talk over you, but I do not think that anybody disagrees with any of what you have said. Whenever I listen to the comments from teachers today, people agree with reform and are not even opposed to the nature of the reform that you are proposing. The problem is that, if they are going to have to deliver it, they have to have confidence in it. With everything else that is going on, however, they do not feel that they have the time and space to do that. We have talked a lot about going back to this model and defending it. No one is attacking what you propose; they are saying that their ability —. This is crucial. That is why you are talking about that model and why you have prioritised it. It is so crucial, but more time may be needed to get it right and to implement it. The people you need to implement it are right now saying, "You can produce this wonderful model, but our ability to actually realise it —. It just feels like we are being told to do it".

Dr Adell: We should frame the question around implementation, rather than pausing now. The rural primary school that I mentioned earlier is now doing something, because the current model does not provide them with the tools that they need. They want to start things now. What we want to do with the implementation in autumn is allow those schools that already want to do things but that cannot to take a different approach; we are not imposing it on all other schools. We are not saying that implementation will start everywhere on 1 September. What we want is for those that are willing and able to do things differently to be able to start. That will allow us to start discussions in earnest, in September, with trade unions about contract models, career progression and those things, but we need to have a model on which to base that. If we do not have the model, we cannot take those next steps.

Mrs Guy: OK. Let me give you a right to reply on the other main piece, which is the legal stuff. You said that you have some legal background. I have a law degree, but that does not make me a lawyer. I want to be clear about what legal advice you have sought about this being legally compliant. I want you to give us the confidence that you have sought advice and are confident that you can stand over it — bearing in mind that Rachel is a barrister — and are not unlawfully transferring responsibility away from the EA and to schools. I just want to be really clear on that point.

Dr Adell: We have internal lawyers in the EA, so we receive legal advice regularly.

Mrs Guy: You have?

Dr Adell: Absolutely. Rachel is incredibly smart — much smarter than most people I meet in my life, to be fair —.

Mrs Guy: I agree entirely.

Dr Adell: I very much want to sit down with her and understand how she came to that position, because that is not our intention. How do we need to express that differently to make it clear that we are not doing that? It is absolutely not what we intend to do. I assume that we have said something or written something that the CLC has interpreted in a way that we do not want it to be interpreted. I want to work with it —.

Ms Ward: There are meetings in place for early May. We picked up engagement with CLC at that event last week, but that is ongoing. We will continue to engage and, as Tomas said, if we have expressed something in the wrong way, we want to understand that.

Mrs Guy: Again, there is a lot of lack of trust. The Committee has asked questions about the transformation projects many times, and you have defended what was happening. We suggested that there was perhaps too much happening and that you needed to scale back, and, again, you said that what was happening was appropriate. You have changed things now, and I welcome that. What was the tipping point for your deciding that you needed to change that? Given that you have robustly defended things before and that you are robustly defending them again, it is fair that people may think that you could shift again under pressure. What was —?

The Chairperson (Mr Mathison): I ask that you try to provide a brief answer to that, Deirdre.

Ms Ward: It is always right that any big transformation programme challenges itself and checks in, at every sensible point, to say, "Are we sure that this is deliverable within the time frame?", and, more importantly, "Are we sure that this will deliver the outcomes that we are looking for?". In terms of looking at the projects that we had, in discussions with the EA and other key stakeholder partners it became clear that the deliverability of some of the projects was at risk. Therefore, rather than spread ourselves so thinly, as we appeared to be doing, it seemed really sensible to focus on the key areas that we felt would be deliverable within the time frame and to take those forward. That was the tipping point in the discussion with our key delivery partners, including the EA.

Mrs Guy: You will probably find that logic will now be reflected back on you, given the pace and the amount of change that is happening. I do not have time for another question, but I hope that you have picked up that we are surprised that we do not have a breakdown of the figures and costs today. It is an obvious point, and we ask it all the time: we never get the obvious financial breakdowns in these briefings.

Ms Ward: OK. We can write back to you.

The Chairperson (Mr Mathison): If you could undertake to provide those, it would be helpful to the Committee.

Ms Ward: Yes, we can do that.

Ms Hunter: My line of questioning is very similar to Michelle's, so I will do my best not to repeat what she asked. In the letter from the Children's Law Centre, one of the things that was highlighted and articulated really well was the point around the shortened eight-week consultation over the Easter holidays. The centre noted that it found that to be disrespectful and not compliant with the EA statutory equality duties. Can you comment on that?

Dr Adell: The EA's equality schemes say that we do eight-week consultations. It is not a shortened consultation. That is the scheme that is on our website.

Ms Hunter: Do you think that it is challenging that it happened over an Easter break? Did that have any impact, given the burnout of our SEN staff?

Dr Adell: There are always challenges when we run consultations. We run a significant number of consultation events outside the Easter break, including those that started last week and will now run for a number of weeks. Timings are always difficult with these things. Whatever we do, there will be some timings that are difficult.

Ms Hunter: OK. The letter also included the belief that the EA wishes to "delegate legal duties to schools". The Children's Law Centre views that as unlawful. Do you agree?

Dr Adell: Yes. I agree that it would be unlawful, but we do not want to delegate legal duties to schools.

Ms Hunter: The centre believes that the enhanced support model is essentially diluting the EA's legal duty, in conflict with SEND law, not taking into account current workforce pressures. Do you agree?

Dr Adell: No.

Ms Hunter: What level of engagement, if any, have you had with the Children's Law Centre following the letter?

Dr Adell: Following the letter, none. I only became aware of the letter late last night.

Ms Hunter: Will you engage with the centre today, or have you done so already?

Dr Adell: I have not engaged with it today, because I have been up here in Stormont for most of the day.

Ms Hunter: OK. There is a real, profound sense that there is a sudden urgency when it comes to SEN reform, without bringing our school leaders, teachers and classroom assistants alongside. Are you picking that up in the engagement that you are having with our school leaders?

Dr Adell: Since August last year, I have spent a significant part of my time in schools. Every single school leader, with virtually no exceptions, said that we must do things differently. It is coming from everywhere. Every SENCO that I speak to says that we cannot keep doing what we are doing and that we must do things differently. The problems that I hear from school leaders, SENCOs and classroom assistants are not to do with the urgency and pace of change. What I hear is a distrust of the EA. They are saying to me over and over again, "What you are saying is good, but can we really trust that you will do it?", not that what we are saying is wrong. There is a significant distinction between those two statements. One of the reasons why I am encouraged to keep on going is because I want to prove that we are not just saying it and are actually doing what we are saying. There are trust issues. We have discussed that many times. But —.

Ms Hunter: It is pretty serious, though. Do you not think that the trust issues that we are talking about today are pretty serious when we see the number of people who have signed the letter?

Dr Adell: Yes. At the same time, when I speak to classroom assistants, teachers, SENCOs and principals, they say that we must change. They say that the kind of change that we are proposing in the enhanced support model is what they want to see in schools.

Ms Hunter: Do you not find it concerning, given that we have the National Autistic Society, the Fostering Network, ADD-NI, the Centre for Children's Rights at Queen's and a number of unions signing the letter? Does that not reflect the fact that there is significant concern about the reform and the pace at which it is happening?

Dr Adell: Of course, and I have already agreed that there are concerns. I encourage those organisations to speak to us and engage in the public consultation, because that is how we can develop a model that works really well. That is why we are consulting. We are not consulting to tick a box; we are doing it to find the best model for children in our schools.

Ms Hunter: In the interest of time, this is my final question. If you had, in the next month or two, a level of engagement with the people who signed this letter, but they were still not happy, would you consider advocating or moving towards a pause when it comes to those reforms? Everyone wants reform. I know that you are trying to make that distinction. All political parties across the Committee want reform, as do our school leaders. Arguably, however, it is about pace. People feel that it is too much too soon. If you continue to see from your engagement that a large number of people want to pause, will you consider that?

Dr Adell: I mean this genuinely: it is a public consultation. We want to hear what the public — as in, everyone who is involved — think. At the end of that, we will decide what we think is the right outcome as a result of the consultation. I do not have a predetermined view either way, because I genuinely believe that public consultation is a really important part of the decision-making process. I do not want to say now what decisions we will make after the consultation either way, because I have a completely blank mind when it comes to how to take this forward afterwards. We have a proposal on the way forward. There may be proposals that are better or strong reasons as to why we should do things differently. That is part of the consultation. That is why we are doing it. I do not want to make promises either way, because I do not at all have a predetermined position on the outcome.

Ms Hunter: That is OK. Hopefully, the Minister will be before the Committee as soon as possible, so we can probe that further, but thank you for your response. Overwhelmingly, what I hear in my constituency is that parents, teachers, school leaders and, in particular, classroom assistants feel really overwhelmed by the number of forthcoming changes. While they welcome change and reform, it is about the pace of that, and they fear that their voices are being left behind. I respect your answers, and I will definitely have more questions for the Minister. Thank you.

Mr Martin: My questions are fairly simple. Danny and I had some debate earlier about whether the number of children with SEN had risen. In the first instance, Tomas, can you tell me whether SEN numbers have risen over the past 10 years, in general terms?

Dr Adell: It is important to distinguish what we are talking about. There absolutely has been an increase in SEN over the past 10 years. There has been a significant increase in the number of children with statements. The number of children with a SEN statement has increased more than the number of children on the SEN registers.

Mr Martin: OK, but you agree that it has gone up?

Dr Adell: Absolutely, yes.

Mr Martin: According to the numbers that I have, there has been a 5% rise in the number of kids who are statemented over the past 10 years. Does that create additional pressure on the system when it comes to delivering the best outcomes for each of those individual children?

Ms Ward: May I correct the numbers? There are 32,000 children — 9·1% of the school population — who have a statutory assessment of SEN. The number of children with a statement of SEN has gone up by 44% since 2021-22.

Dr Adell: The increased number of children with SEN at all stages obviously increases the work pressures in education.

Ms Ward: Going back to your question on whether it puts pressure on the system, it absolutely does.

Mr Martin: OK. If we just keep the same system that we have, is it responsive to the needs of those children, given the fact that there are additional children in that system who require support?

Dr Adell: The simple answer is no. I would go so far as to say that, for children with a statement of SEN, the current model will not be deliverable 12 to 18 months from now, because we simply do not have people to employ. Some children will have no support, even though they have a statement, because it is simply impossible to fill posts. We will have to start a system of rationing support if we keep doing what we are doing.

Mr Martin: The CLC statement says:

What would be the implications of just stopping it? I am not talking about the system. What would be the implications for children who need support in that area?

Dr Adell: It is our assessment that children in Northern Ireland with SEN do not have the support that they need to receive the outcomes that they deserve, compared with their counterparts in other jurisdictions. Every day we do not transform, we accept that our children have suboptimal outcomes. To make it absolutely clear, that is not because of the people in the system; it is because the people are not given the right tools to do their very good job in the system.

Mr Martin: Members of the Committee have talked today about pausing the reform agenda. CLC has been a lot stronger; it said that it must stop. Would you welcome engagement with the Children's Law Centre? Tomas, you have been quite clear about your willingness to engage with it. I get a sense that you and the EA want the best for some of our most vulnerable kids in Northern Ireland. CLC has certainly indicated in its letter that its heart is in trying to find the best approach. Do you think that there will be some engagement between you and CLC to understand more fully why it has written some of the things that it has in that letter?

Dr Adell: Deirdre and I have separate meetings —

Ms Ward: Yes, they are already in our diaries.

Dr Adell: — in our diaries with CLC in May.

Ms Ward: Early May.

Dr Adell: If CLC wanted to meet me this week, I would do everything to facilitate that. I will speak to anyone who wants to speak to me, subject to finding time in our diaries. Anyone who wants to speak to us can speak to us. We are open to anything. I have said before that I enjoy coming to the Committee. I know that there have been some comments about that. It is because I believe that constructive debate and challenge is how we drive change and improvement. I stand over that every day of the week. If we are wrong, we need to fix what we are doing wrong, but we can do that only by having constructive debate and discussion about what we are proposing and doing.

Mr Martin: OK. That is great.

The Chairperson (Mr Mathison): Thank you both for your evidence.

Mr Sheehan: Chair, may I ask a quick question?

The Chairperson (Mr Mathison): Yes. It needs to be very brief.

Mr Sheehan: It seems that the statement from the Children's Law Centre came like a bolt out of the blue for you. Are you telling the Committee that you were totally unaware of how it felt about the way in which things were going?

Dr Adell: We had some indication from the conference on Thursday that there were issues, but the extent of them was a complete surprise to us.

Mr Sheehan: OK.

The Chairperson (Mr Mathison): From having attended the conference, I know that the Children's Law Centre contributed on the day, but it certainly did not make any public declaration about a letter that was coming at that stage.

I thank you both for your evidence today. We really pushed the timings for you further than we would have liked. There will undoubtedly be ongoing engagement far beyond the inquiry that we are running, and we appreciate the time that you have given us today. We will no doubt be hearing from you again soon. Thank you.