§ Motion made, and Question proposed, That this House do now adjourn.—[Vernon Coakerl.]
6.41 pm§ Mr. David Heath (Somerton and Frome)I understand that today we witnessed an astronomical phenomenon, the transit of Venus, which occurs very infrequently. From my research, debates on the role of educational psychologists appear to be equally infrequent. Not only is it remiss of the House not to consider an important profession, but it is odd, given that right hon. and hon. Members on both sides of the House frequently have cause to look into the work of educational psychologists because of casework emerging from our surgeries. We are often approached by parents who have children with special educational needs, and we often make pleas on their behalf for the support that the parents would like their children to receive.
Educational psychologists are a crucial part of much of the Government's thinking, as I understand it, in terms of multi-agency work and some of the inclusion work that is clearly laid out in the Green Paper, "Every Child Matters", and much of the ongoing work of the Department for Education and Skills. We are speaking of a small but important profession and the work that it does.
I express my thanks to my friend Dr. Sandra Dunsmuir, who first approached me on the subject, and her colleague from University college, London, Norah Frederickson, and to the Association of Educational Psychologists and the British Psychological Society, both of which were helpful in providing me with information in support of this debate.
In the time available, I shall touch on three broad matters—first, the supply of educational psychologists within the profession; secondly, their training; and thirdly and briefly, the role that they play. On supply, it is recognised throughout the country that there is a significant problem with the number of entrants to the profession and the number of educational psychologists who are available to local education authorities to do the statutory work and the extended additional work that we would like them to do.
I had a discussion earlier today with David Webster, the president of the Association of Educational Psychologists and the chief officer for Lancashire county council. He tells me that his authority is typical of many throughout the country in holding three vacancies out of an establishment of 41. In addition, several members of staff are on maternity leave. He cannot fill the vacancies successfully, but without filling the vacancies he cannot begin to ask people to apply for the temporary vacancies that would enable the authority to do some of the non-statutory work that we would all wish it to do.
Brian Harrison-Jennings, the chief executive of the Association of Educational Psychologists, told me that a major authority in the north of England recently advertised for three senior educational psychologists and received not a single applicant for those three posts, which is surprising, given that one would expect people in the profession to apply for such posts. One's initial reaction might be that it is good for the profession that 246 educational psychologists are fully employed and that those who are qualified can find posts, but I suspect that that is not the case. Local education authorities increasingly face a lack of cover and over-extension and educational psychologists are being forced to perform statutory duties as a priority, simply because that is what LEAs require, and do not have time to do their jobs in a wider sense.
Those who want to enter the profession face difficulties. A statistic struck me. As the Minister knows, 110 training places are currently available each year for educational psychologists and 482 people applied last year. Those 482 applicants have degrees and are ready to enter the profession, but the required training places are not available. That only 110 places are available is, of course, part of he problem. In December 2003, the Department for Education and Skills commissioned a report—I see the Minister nodding—that identified the need for 150 places a year in order to provide for the sustainable development of the profession.
The lack of available qualified educational psychologists has an impact on their work. Children often need to wait for assessment and, as I said earlier, many hon. Members know from their advice surgeries how frustrating it can be for parents and children when a child must wait or a long period for an assessment, which prevents the sort of therapeutic intervention that we would like to see at an early stage. Educational psychologists are spending less time with children. For an educational psychologist to see a child for a second time is a luxury, which is not what we want to see in a profession that provides ongoing support. As I said, that places the emphasis on statutory duties rather than on preventive work, on which I know many in the profession would like to concentrate.
The answer has already been identified, and it is to the credit of the Department for Education and Skills, the professional associations and the employers, through the LEAs and the Local Government Association, that they have been able to come together and identify it. As the Minister knows, the answer, at least in part, is the new model for training educational psychologists. It involves increasing; postgraduate professional training for educational psychologists from one year to three years, while removing the obligation for educational psychologists to hold a teaching qualification and two years' teaching experience. The net result is to reduce the overall training period from eight years to six years and to concentrate or experience that is relevant to the actual profession that applicants want to enter, rather than on training in a profession—classroom teacher—that applicants have no desire to enter, valuable though it is.
That model has a high level of acceptability. In May 2001, the Department for Education and Employment—as it then was—provided a summary of the responses to its consultation.
Of the 101 responses—the fact that 77 came from local education authorities indicates that a strong view was expressed by the employers as well as the profession—90 per cent. agreed that the new model would meet the training needs of the profession in future and 94 per cent. said that the package would be viable from the perspective of higher education providers and 247 employers. A clear picture is emerging: this is a solution that it is in everyone's interest to implement at an early stage.
Moving on from that consultation, the Department engaged in discussions on an implementation strategy, and it was believed that it saw the proposal as a high priority. It is right that it should do so. We have to deal with the current shortages, and the fact that everyone is pointing in the same direction at once represents a window of opportunity that should not be missed. Moreover, as the Minister will be aware, in March 2003 the Department of Health introduced a requirement for the statutory regulation of psychologists. That suggests that regulation via the Health Professions Council, which starts in March 2005, would be met by the new arrangements, but not the present ones.
There is substantial impetus behind the proposal and a generally agreed view that it needs to be put in place at the earliest opportunity. The implementation date was set for September 2005, and that has been the working assumption of those in the profession for some time. There has to be a two-year transition period"one cannot immediately switch on the tap from one training module to the other, because people are already involved in the training process. In the course of that two-year transition, some of the cohorts in training would start at the point of the new three-year postgraduate professional training process, some would be in the middle of the previous process, and some would be at the end of the previous process.
That means that a transitional cost is involved as well as the ongoing costs of providing such training. It has always been understood that local education authorities, although they are perfectly satisfied with the arrangements and believe that they can sustain the outcome, will always need help from the Government in achieving the transition from one process to the other. There is no reason why that should not be the case. However, a fly in the ointment appeared in the shape of a letter dated 2 March 2004 from the Minister for School Standards to the Association of Educational Psychologists. That letter sent a disturbing signal to the profession. In it, the Minister says:
However, it is important that you understand that funding agreed for the Department in the Spending Review will reflect overall Ministerial priorities; there can be no guarantee that funding will be found to enable implementation from 2005.That is clearly true. The Minister must have the flexibility to direct priorities within the Department in the coming year, the comprehensive spending review is still under way, and sanction from the Treasury is necessary for the global spend in the Department. Not a single word in the letter is untrue.However, it sends a signal that there is uncertainty about implementation. Although I am not sure about the Department's total spend, I suspect that we are not considering a high percentage of it. The letter conveys the message that the Department is unclear about whether it can find the necessary cash—£4.7 million in the first year—for implementation on the expected date. That figure is petty cash for the Department for Education and Skills. Nevertheless, it appears to be in question. The figure for subsequent years is £10.4 million.
248 The effect has been not only confusion but some dismay. That applies not only to the profession, but, crucially, to those who are applying for training places. They do not know what they should do—whether to enter teaching training and whether to assume the existence of funding packages. Many educational psychologists who are currently training are self-funded. We could start a debate about the effect of top-up fees and loans, but that would be out of place. However, if people must fund not only their way through university but their professional training, some will consider the subsequent debt and wonder whether it is worth while.
Many potentially good applicants are asking for advice and the professional associations and the higher education establishment are unable to provide answers simply because of the uncertainty that the Department has engendered. Some applicants are going ahead regardless, some are wondering whether they should take an odd sort of postgraduate gap year and others are simply going away and saying that perhaps they will return when the Department has sorted itself out and they know where they stand. That is not satisfactory, so if the Minister can provide any clarity he will do a great service to the profession and those who need its services in future.
I want to conclude with a few words about educational psychologists' working practices. I express my opinion purely as a lay person who sees people in my surgery and teachers in schools. There is something desperately wrong with the assessment process. I get the impression that educational psychologists are increasingly finding themselves producing reports, assessments, reports on whether a report should be prepared, reports on whether an assessment should be conducted and so on, instead of dealing directly with the children.
The statementing process, which was once a protection for the child and the parents, became a protection of a funding stream for the school. Nowadays, schools appear to prefer not to have devolved special educational needs funding budgets because it pre-empts their decision making. They argue that a statement is often unnecessary. It is sometimes an obstacle to children getting the support that they need.
I understand why parents feel cautious about the matter, because they want a guarantee that their child will get the necessary support. However, if the process of creating the guarantee soaks up the resources that should provide the support, something is wrong. We would all like educational psychologists, who are highly skilled, not to write endless reports but to deal with children, take a more holistic approach to the children in their care, and perhaps work more generally on the design of school teaching and the causes of exclusion in the school environment. They should be allowed to work one to one with a child. They rarely get the chance to do that. They should be able to do more preventive work rather than statutory work and concentrate on some of the schemes that the Government are anxious to promote, such as portage schemes, Sure Start and behaviour improvement projects.
Most of all, educational psychologists should deal with inclusion. They are a critical factor in creating the circumstances for proper inclusion for children who are disaffected, have specific needs or could do better in their school environment. I hope that the Minister can 249 assure us that that is also the Government's understanding and that they are taking the necessary steps to reassure the profession and enable it to move forward.
§ It being Seven o'clock, the motion for the Adjournment of the House lapsed, without Question put.
§ Motion made, and Question proposed, That this House do now adjourn.—[Mr. Coaker.]
§ 7 pm
§ Mr. David Drew (Stroud) (Lab/Co-op)I shall make just a few guarded remarks. I welcome what the hon. Member for Somerton and Frome (Mr. Heath) has said. He performs an invaluable service in dealing with the Cinderella subjects that are so often ignored.
I would like to make two observations. Some educational psychologists have written to me to say that they are a wee bit worried about the implications of the changes to their profession. I know that they welcome the additional resources, but I suppose that their starting point would be—as the hon. Gentleman made only too clear—to ask how the training will take effect, what impact it will have on people already in situ, and whether there is any danger of a two-tier service developing. It would be appropriate if my hon. Friend the Minister could allay those fears.
My other point follows the hon. Gentleman's final remarks about the role of educational psychologists. Traditionally, this service has been directed by and through local education authorities. Now, with devolved budgets, schools are much more able to determine how they want their special educational needs budgets to be allocated. To some extent, that means that there is the potential for conflict in the role of the educational psychologist, in that schools might want to allocate the money for SEN on a more general basis, while parents might wish to identify the particular problems of their children. We have had an active debate on the value of statementing as a means to an end rather than an end in itself, so it would be helpful if my hon. Friend the Minister could allay any fears that we could be creating a more complicated situation in which there is even more room for disagreement, if not conflict, between the different parties.
In all the dealings that I have had with educational psychologists, I have found the service that they provide to be greatly undervalued and very important. At the end of the day, children who have difficulties in the schooling system clearly have to be looked at and helped by educational psychologists, and there is always a risk that the service might be spread a bit thinly. The Government can therefore be proud of anything that can be done to ensure that our children are given the appropriate help in a transparent and fair manner, and anything that my hon. Friend has to say about that will be gratefully received by the whole House.
§ 7.3 pm
§ The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Education and Skills (Mr. Stephen Twigg)I congratulate the hon. Member for Somerton and Frome (Mr. Heath) on securing this important debate, and I thank my hon. Friend the Member for Stroud (Mr. Drew) for his intervention in it.
250 In opening, the hon. Member for Somerton and Frome informed the House that debates such as these are infrequent, so I thank him for giving us this opportunity to address this important subject. We are talking about an important group of professionals who make a vital contribution to our education service and, more generally, to children and young people in education. I certainly concur with what both he and my hon. Friend said about these issues coming up in our own constituencies and all hon. Members will be aware of cases in which failings or weaknesses in the service have undermined the education and upbringing of children and young people in our constituencies.
Educational psychologists play a major part in helping to identify the learning needs of individual children and young people, including those who have special educational needs, and a critical role in supporting local authorities and schools in meeting those identified needs. They are a key resource in building the capacity of the education system to respond to children's learning needs.
At the end of his remarks, the hon. Gentleman addressed some broader challenges that we face in relation to assessment and special educational needs. I want say a few things about the broad picture with respect to SEN before addressing the specific issues that he raised in the main part of his speech about the role and training of educational psychologists.
The theme of building up capacity is central to our recently published document on special educational needs, "Removing Barriers to Achievement", the new strategy on SEN, and to the Green Paper, "Every Child Matters", to which the hon. Gentleman referred, and the associated legislation currently going through Parliament. The SEN strategy sets out our long-term vision and an ambitious programme of sustained action nationally and locally to enable all children with SEN to realise their potential. We are seeking to recognise some of the weaknesses and inconsistencies to which he referred. It is not about changing the legal framework, but about setting out ways in which real effect can be given to it, so that we make sure that the current system works as effectively as possible to meet the needs of children.
There are four key themes to which I will refer briefly: early intervention; removing barriers to learning; raising expectations and achievement; and delivering improvements in partnership. Each of those is relevant to some of the specific issues that the hon. Gentleman raised.
With respect to early intervention, we want to ensure that children with learning difficulties can receive the help that they need as soon as possible, and that parents of those children have access to suitable services, including child care. The strategy therefore seeks to embed in national practice the principles of the early support pilot programme for very young children and their families, and to implement a new strategy for child care for children with special educational needs, including working with voluntary organisations to consider the feasibility of establishing a national early intervention centre of excellence to use evidence about what works to inform practice. This emphasis on early intervention provides a real opportunity for educational psychologists to spend more time working with schools, working with individual pupils, and supporting teachers 251 and other staff in putting in place programmes and interventions to address the individual needs of each child at the earliest possible stage.
The second strand in that strategy is removing barriers to learning. Children's learning difficulties often arise because the learning environment is not suitable. In developing the kind of inclusive practice about which the hon. Gentleman rightly spoke, we seek to meet the needs of every child. A new inclusion development programme, bringing together education, health, social care and the voluntary sector, will therefore develop effective approaches to provision for children with special educational needs. Initially, the programme will focus on autistic spectrum disorder, behavioural, emotional and social difficulties, speech, language and communication difficulties, and moderate learning difficulties. We are developing proposals to improve the quality of education for children with more severe behavioural, emotional and social difficulties, including addressing the regional planning of provision and providing practical guidance on reducing reliance on high-cost placements. We will also be developing minimum standards for SEN advisory and support services.
In terms of raising expectations and achievement, we have set out a strategic approach to developing the skills of staff working with children with SEN, and we are discussing with the Teacher Training Agency and others practical ways of ensuring that teacher training, induction and continuous professional development provide a good grounding in SEN.
We are sharpening the focus on SEN within our national primary and key stage 3 strategies, ensuring that we make the very best use of the data available and breaking down barriers between the Government and the voluntary and private sectors to improve the quality of planning to support young people in making the transition between the different stages of education and adult life.
Finally, we seek to deliver improvements in partnership working. As my hon. Friend the Member for Stroud said, despite some progress in recent years, children still face a postcode lottery in terms of the support available. That applies with respect to educational psychologists and more broadly to special educational needs. That is why the strategy contains a number of measures to promote greater consistency, including a team of SEN advisers working with local authorities to provide support and challenge, and a key role for our network of SEN regional partnerships in spreading effective practice. We are also building on the opportunities provided by the Green Paper, "Every Child Matters", and the Children Bill to integrate education, health and social care around the needs of children and families. The children s national service framework will set national outcome standards for health and social services, and we seek to align it with the SEN strategy through a joint implementation plan.
I do not at all underestimate the scale of the challenge that we face, which was well set out in both speeches earlier. I do believe that our strategy, combined with our work on inclusion in the White Paper and the Bill, will 252 provide a real opportunity to get system-wide improvement for all children with special educational needs.
§ Mr. HeathI wholly welcome the framework that the Minister has set out, particularly the fact that teacher training will include specific training for children with SEN. Does he accept, however, that most of it cannot work without sufficient trained educational psychologists to underpin the system? That is why recruitment and retention are critical to the strategy's success and why early decisions are necessary.
§ Mr. TwiggI am coming to that point, and I certainly accept that it is important that we should have the right people in place to ensure that the strategy can be effective and successful, and consistently so across the country.
Educational psychologists have a central role to play in working with children with SEN. Their work on statutory assessments and the drawing up of statements is a key function, but they also have an important contribution to make in the area of early intervention and providing support when a child's needs are first identified. I have already addressed early intervention with respect to educational psychology. Four years ago, we published the report of the educational psychology working group, together with a major piece of research on how services operated and how they were seen by their users. That work identified core functions in the areas of working with early years settings, schools and multi-agency teams. It also identified critical factors for success and pointed to good practice. It recommended that all educational psychology services should: apply psychology to promote the attainment and healthy emotional development of children and young people from 0 to 19 years; ensure that early intervention is a priority; be linked to local authority strategies to meet local and national priorities for raising standards in schools and supporting inclusion; be delivered in school settings as well as in local authority and family settings; focus on assessment, intervention and consultation; develop multi-agency approaches to support schools and parents; and be accessible to users independently of schools.
The research confirmed what the hon. Member for Somerton and Frome and my hon. Friend the Member for Stroud said about parents and schools finding educational psychologists a hugely valuable resource. Parents see them as a key link to the school and other agencies and placed particular value on home visiting.
Teachers and SENCOs value educational psychologists for the advice that they give on strategies for the classroom and for providing practical demonstrations, and see them as having an important contribution to make to training. Similarly, educational psychologists make a key contribution to work with children who have, or who are at risk of developing, behavioural, emotional and social difficulties. They are a vital component of the behaviour and education support teams.
The hon. Gentleman rightly focused on the numbers of educational psychologists working in our communities and, in particular, the numbers who are 253 being trained to enter work in future years. I am pleased to say that the data that we have available, which we collect from local authorities, suggest that there has been an increase in recent years in the total number of full-time equivalent educational psychologists. In 1997, the figure was 1,768. In 2003, it was 2,026, a not insignificant increase.
I absolutely accept, however, the hon. Gentleman's central point that although that is progress, a great deal more needs to be done if we are to meet all the needs that we know exist in the communities that we serve. The figures that he set out are correct. Unfortunately, the Local Government Association decided last year to reduce the number of funded training places to 110. We accept the figure of 150, which the hon. Gentleman cites, as ideal, and we have welcomed the LGA's more recent decision effectively to reverse that cut and to take the figure back up to 130. That is clearly better than 110, but we still believe that 150 is the figure for which we should aim. I shall address that issue right at the end of my remarks.
I turn briefly to the work of the working group, to which the hon. Gentleman referred, which brings together all the key people working in this sphere: the Department for Education and Skills, local government and the various associations representing psychology, and educational psychologists in particular. The working group commits us to working with that range of interests to review the initial training of educational psychologists and their continuing professional development. That work has been carried on through a smaller sub-group of the original working group, and I am grateful to all those who have contributed to its deliberations.
It is from that working group that the new training route that the hon. Gentleman described has emerged. Discussion has focused in particular on the need to develop a new entry training route for educational psychologists. The existing route is lengthy, at eight years, and its arrangements are not wholly in line with those for comparable professions such as clinical psychology. That is viewed as contributing to some of the recruitment problems in the profession. We have to be careful on that, because the Government are not the direct employer, but we see ourselves as having an important role in facilitating bringing people together to do the greater investigative work.
We have commissioned, as the hon. Gentleman described, two detailed implementation studies on the practicalities of introducing a slimmed-down entry route that would extend over six, rather than eight, years. That has been widely discussed and consulted on, and the six-year model has secured clear, unmistakable endorsement during the consultations run by the Department. The studies have drawn together the views of all the key interested parties, including the Association of Educational Psychologists, the British Psychology Association and some of the training providers in higher education.
254 My hon. Friend the Member for Stroud questioned whether there was a danger that that approach could lead to a two-tier system, or that there might be some contention over that change. From everything that I have seen, I am reassured that the professionals working in the field, as well as local government, the universities and we ourselves, are confident that that does not need to be the case, and that the new system can be made to work. The working group has considered issues such as the status of educational psychologists in training, different regional arrangements, the nature of work placements and associated supervision, and the funding needed to underpin a revised scheme. The hon. Member for Somerton and Frome has put his case very strongly today.
The studies confirm that implementing the new route will entail significant additional expenditure. Officials previously informed the various parties with whom we have been working that the case for such expenditure needs to be considered in the context of the 2004 spending review. I appreciate what the hon. Gentleman said about the uncertainty that that creates, and I am not going to deny that such uncertainty exists in the system. What is important is that we get matters right. I can give him an assurance today that although I am not in a position to go beyond the terms of the letter of a couple of months ago that he read out to the House, we are considering the final allocation of the spending review settlement in the light of our overall priorities for education and for children's services, which are now within the specific remit of the Department for Education and Skills.
Unlike other Government Departments, we received our overall envelope of money in the Budget, which means that we are planning at a different stage from other Government Departments. I can assure the hon. Gentleman that the points that he and my hon. Friend the Member for Stroud raised today will contribute to our consideration All our spending priorities. Much as the hon. Gentleman tempts me to go beyond that, I am not in a position to do so today. What I can say is that we take this issue very seriously, and we will decide the long-term position within the next few months.
I am very grateful to the hon. Gentleman for putting this issue on the record today via an Adjournment debate. He has demonstrated the strength of his case, and the issue that we are addressing is how we can make the very best use of some of our finest professionals to meet the needs of individual children and young people. All three of us who have spoken in this debate have paid tribute to the excellent work done by educational psychologists, which I want to put on the record clearly and explicitly. I hope that, as we move forward, we can ensure both a sufficient supply of good, high-quality people to do this work, and that the very real need and demand out there is met in a consistent and inclusive way that gives the very best possible start in life to children and young people in communities throughout the country. I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for allowing me to put that on the record today.
§ Question put and agreed to.
§ Adjourned accordingly at twenty-two minutes past Seven o'clock.