APPLICATION OF CERTAIN PROVISIONS OF THIS ACT TO RECORDED CHILDREN AND YOUNG PERSONS (Hansard, 21 October 1981)

§ Mr. Alexander Fletcher
I beg to move, That this House doth agree with the Lords in the said amendment.

Mr. Deputy Speaker
With this it will be convenient to discuss Lords amendment No. 26.

§ Mr. Fletcher
These amendments were moved in another place by my noble Friend the Minister of State to establish an exception to the general principle that the duties of education authorities in respect of placing requests extend to requests relating to children from outwith their area.
The parents of recorded children have been granted the right, not available to others, to make a placing request specifying a grant-aided or independent school making provision for special educational needs. Special needs are, of course, already met in this way and quite frequently the school involved is not in the child's home area.
As matters stood, the education authority receiving the placing request, which might in theory be any authority, would have a duty to finance the child's attendance at the specified school unless one of the listed grounds of refusal applied. It is clearly appropriate that any such duty to give financial support should be restricted to the home authority. The amendments provide that a placing request specifying a grant-aided or independent special school is valid only if it is made to the education authority which, in terms of section 23(3) of the 1980 Act, is responsible for making provision for the child's education.

§ Mr. Alexander Fletcher
I beg to move, That this House doth agree with the Lords in the said amendment.
This is a technical amendment and is consequential upon amendments Nos. 7, 8, 13, 15 and 16, to which the 335 House has already agreed. The amendment widens the regulation-making power in section 23(3) of the 1980 Act to include the purpose of sections 60 to 65F of the 1980 Act.

Lords amendment:
No. 28, in page 72, line 27, at end insert— 7. After section 23(6) of that Act, there shall be inserted the following subsection— (6A) Nothing in this section affects the duty under section 28A of this Act or that section as it has effect under schedule A2 to this Act of an education authority to place a child in accordance with a placing request or authorises them to decline to make for the pupil to whom the placing request relates such provision of school education as is mentioned in subsection (1) above.

§ Mr. Alexander Fletcher
I beg to move, That this House doth agree with the Lords in the said amendment.
The amendment is necessary to put beyond a shadow of doubt the duty of an education authority to comply with a placing request where the child concerned does not belong to the authority's area.
Under the provisions of new section 28A, education authorities will be under an obligation to accede to a parent's request that his child should be admitted to a particular school except where one or more of the specified grounds of refusal apply. These grounds do not include the parents' area of residence: we do not believe that an authority should be able to refuse a parent's choice of school simply because the parent lives outside the catchment area for the school.
The Government have made plain to the Convention of Scottish Local Authorities that they believe the same principle should apply across local authority boundaries. That is, an authority should not be able to refuse a placing request simply because the child concerned comes from outwith its area. Of course, it will be able to give priority to children from its own area, but if there is still room in a school after it has met the needs of those children it should not be able to refuse a place to someone from across the regional boundary or across the border. In accordance with this policy new section 28A of the 1980 Act, contained in clause 1 of the Bill, is expressed in general terms relating to a placing request made by any parent, not confined to a parent living in the area of the authority to which the request is addressed.
It has been suggested, however, that there may be an inconsistency between new section 28A and the existing section 23(1) of the 1980 Act which could be interpreted as empowering, but not requiring, an education authority to make provision for a child resident in the area of another education authority or a local authority in England and Wales. Lest it be argued that this gives authorities a degree of discretion over whether they should or should not cater for such a child, the present amendment adds an additional subsection (6A) to section 23, and makes plain that nothing in that section affects an authority's duty to accede to a placing request and make provision for a child from outwith its area.

§ Mr. O'Neill
Who will pay for the education of children who go outwith their local authority? Will the home local authority or the receiving authority accede to the parents' request?

§ Mr. Fletcher
The home authority will automatically come under an obligation to pay the outwith area fee or contribution to the authority providing for the child. Thus, 336 schedule 9 repeals the proviso to section 23(2) of the 1980 Act, which at present allows the Secretary of State to direct that no contribution should be recoverable by the receiving authority on the ground that there was no sufficient reason why he should not have attended a school provided by the authority of the area to which he belongs".
This provision repeals those words.
The amount of the fee payable by one education authority to another is in practice fixed by the Convention of Scottish Local Authorities on behalf of all education authorities, at present on the basis that it covers the full average cost of providing for a pupil; and under a similar arrangement it would also be open to the convention, in practice, to fix a fee covering the marginal cost only of admitting a pupil to a place that would otherwise remain empty.