Asked by
To ask His Majesty’s Government what plans they have to ensure
that anyone identified as having a Special Educational Need in
the education system is passported through to the appropriate
support when looking for employment in adult life.
(LD)
My Lords, in begging leave to ask the Question standing in my
name on the Order Paper, I remind the House of my declared
interests in the register.
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Department for
Education () (Con)
My Lords, we recently set out plans in the SEND and alternative
provision improvement plan to ensure that every young person with
special educational needs and disabilities achieves good outcomes
and is prepared for adulthood. As part of this, we are developing
good practice guidance to support consistent, timely,
high-quality transitions for young people with SEND, including
into employment. We are also supporting the Department for Work
and Pensions to pilot an adjustments passport, which will to help
smooth that transition.
(LD)
My Lords, I thank the Minister for that response; I appreciate
that she is primarily answering for a department that is not her
own. At the moment, if you talk to anybody in employment going
through this, they will give you a list of things that do not
happen: people do not know what an adjustment is or how to find
out what it is, and employers do not know exactly what they are
supposed to do. Can we have a guide to what will happen when
somebody goes into employment and, for instance, goes for Access
to Work, where they are not required to get the job first, apply
and then require the employer to ensure they are prepared to
sustain them, without being at full capacity for a period of time
before they get the benefit of it? Unless people can get some
form of passporting or labelling system that says that they are
entitled to it as they go to work, they are going to be in
trouble.
(Con)
The Department for Education is piloting the use of the
adjustment passports in a number of settings. We started with
higher education, and we are now looking at supported internships
and apprenticeships. We need to understand how useful they are in
that setting, and then we will look at whether they will apply
more widely in future.
(Lab)
My Lords, I declare my interest as vice-president of the National
Autistic Society. Just 29% of autistic people are in paid work,
and a recent IPPR report revealed that nearly one-third of
unemployed 18 to 29 year-olds are autistic. The Government have a
£151 million Access to Work budget intended to encourage
employers to engage people with a disability. Can some of that
funding be used to expand schemes such as supported employment
and supported internships, which will directly benefit autistic
people seeking work?
(Con)
First, I thank the noble Lord for his work in this area. On
Access to Work, as the noble Lord knows, this is a demand-led and
discretionary grant for disabled people. My understanding is that
in some cases, autism is defined as a disability and in others
not, so there may be eligibility criteria. On the noble Lord’s
wider point, he will be aware that is leading a review of
employment for people with autism, trying to understand the
barriers and to raise the figure from the 29% to which the noble
Lord referred.
(CB)
My Lords, work experience is an important window on the world of
work for all young people, but the figures we heard from the
noble Lord opposite suggest that it is particularly important for
young people with learning disabilities and autism in raising
their expectations of and aspirations in the workplace. Are the
Government confident that students with learning disabilities
have the same work experience opportunities as their peers? What
steps are they taking to encourage employers to make the
necessary adjustments to provide placements for young people with
learning disabilities and autism?
(Con)
The noble Baroness makes an important point. The guidance on the
support for young people with disabilities in relation to the
Gatsby benchmarks, and on the support the National Careers
Service offers, tries to address some of the issues she raises.
However, without question, if we look at the evidence on
employment rates for young people with disabilities, there is
more to be done.
(Con)
We have been discussing for many years the ways in which we can
improve employment for youngsters on the spectrum. My grandson is
on it, and I therefore spend a lot of my life trying to find some
answers. As I have said before, every headmaster at every school
throughout the country should have been trained in SEND and in
identifying the problems of autism, as indeed should everybody in
education. The SEND aspect is hugely important. I have had the
pleasure of discussing this issue with my noble friend the
Minister, who has her own very warm feelings on it and knows that
something needs to be done. The key is educational psychologists.
In my view, identifying at a very early age that somebody is
autistic, establishing the possibility of sending them to a
normal school, and in due course giving them the training to get
a job, are key. I have discussed this with the Minister and I
look forward to her response.
(Con)
I know my noble friend feels very strongly about this, and I hope
he welcomes the Government’s commitment to introducing a new
national professional qualification for SENDCOs that will replace
the existing qualification, and the commitment to increasing the
number of educational psychologists in our schools, which we have
already started to deliver on.
(Lab)
My Lords, I thank the Minister for her answers to date, but I
would like to probe a little further. Last month, in the SEND and
AP improvement plan, the Government committed to publish guidance
to support
“effective transitions between all stages of education, and into
employment in adult services”.
Given that the Secretary of State acknowledged that parents have
lost trust in the system, is the Minister able to give parents a
timeline for when they might get this important guidance?
(Con)
The first guidance we will deliver will be on early language
support, autism and mental health and well-being. Those practice
guides will be available by the end of 2025. I do not have
the date for the transitions guidance but I will be happy to
write to the noble Baroness with that.
(LD)
My Lords, I appreciate that this is not the Minister’s
department, but she will be aware that jobcentres have work
coaches who provide support, particularly to young people. In my
view, those work coaches have very limited training and provide
very limited time. Can she assure us—or go back to her
colleague’s department and then assure us—that young people with
special educational needs get quality time and that the staff
giving that support and time are properly trained?
(Con)
Everybody who meets with a work coach should expect to get
quality time, and my understanding is that the vast majority of
individuals do. Of course, this is important for young people
with SEND. DWP has a huge amount of experience in dealing with
long-term health conditions and disabilities. Secondly, part of
the work we are doing together with the DWP is to understand and
knit together where education meets employment, to make sure that
we get the best outcomes for young people.
(CB)
My Lords, my granddaughter, aged six, was identified with quite
severe dyslexia. She went to the Eleanor Palmer School, where the
headmistress said that no one in the school knew how to deal with
it, so she sent two of the staff to be trained. My granddaughter
did brilliantly at primary school and ended up at Edinburgh
University with a good degree. So support really needs to start
at primary school to ensure success in education.
(Con)
I can reassure the noble and learned Baroness that it does start
at primary school. The work we are doing to help teachers
identify dyslexia early on—in particular, the early phonics
screening test—allows us to do just that. Through our English
hubs, we are helping primary schools and their teachers to
support children like the noble and learned Baroness’s
granddaughter.
(DUP)
What assurance can the Minister give that those with special
educational needs will be guaranteed the same opportunity for
lifelong learning as others within society?
(Con)
Our aspiration is to make sure that all those who wish to access
lifelong learning, including those with special educational
needs, can do so. Obviously, we are in the early stages—we have
not started to implement the policy in detail—but it will be a
key focus for us.
