Doncaster College for the Deaf (Hansard, 10 May 1994)

§ The Minister of State, Department for Education (Baroness Blatch)
My Lords, I wrote to the noble Baroness on 28th April and again yesterday to explain that the Further Education Funding Council has confirmed that it will continue to fund places for students with learning difficulties and disabilities at Doncaster College for the Deaf in cases which meet the council's published criteria for such placements.

§ Baroness David
My Lords, I am grateful to the Minister for her Answer and indeed for the letters that I received and the copies of letters to other people that she has sent me. But I persist in the question because the education of 16 to 19 year-olds with learning disabilities is an important one, so I thought it was a good thing to air this problem. Is it correct that it is the responsibility of LEAs to buy placements at independent specialist institutions for young people of 16 to 19 provided that they have a statement and that the Further Education Funding Council has responsibility for buying placements if there is not a statement and if the college is educationally appropriate? Is Doncaster College educationally appropriate; and is it the Further Education Funding Council which decides whether it is or not?

§ Baroness Blatch
My Lords, the noble Baroness is absolutely right to make the distinction between those young people who have a statement and those who do not. Both under the existing rules and under the new 1432 rules it will be important for local education authorities to assess the further education needs—the post-16 needs —of a child at the age of 14 and 15 so that all of this is thought through in advance. For a child who has a statement and continues with a statement, it is the responsibility of the local education authority. That has been properly recognised in the split of funding between the FEFC and the local authorities. For all other students post-16, depending on whether they go to a school or an FE college, the local authority or the Further Education Funding Council meets the cost. But they have distinct and definite obligations to young people with special needs.

§ Baroness David
My Lords, perhaps I may follow that up. The Minister did not answer the last part of my question about Doncaster College being considered an appropriate educational institution and whose responsibility it is to decide that.

§ Baroness Blatch
My Lords, Doncaster College is responsible for providing education on both counts. First, at 16-plus it is an extension of a school and therefore it is highly appropriate for a local education authority to make a placement for a statemented child and to meet the costs of that placement. It is also entirely proper, and indeed it is done, that the Further Education Funding Council will meet the needs of young people with special educational needs who do not have statements. So it is possible for the FEFC to fund Doncaster College, as it is for local education authorities to fund places at the college.

Lord Lucas
My Lords, does my noble friend agree that there are perhaps two problems here? One is the longer term problem where the local education authorities perceive substantial financial benefit in not giving students over the age of 16 statements so that they then become the responsibility of the Further Education Funding Council. That long-term dispute is causing a hiatus in the supply of students to Doncaster College for the Deaf which is resulting in it facing extinction while the dispute is being sorted out.

§ Baroness Blatch
My Lords, my noble friend raises an important issue but I should like to reassure him on a number of points. First, a local education authority is responsible for young people up to the age of 19. If a young person has profound deafness and is statemented, it is the responsibility of the local education authority to be concerned about provision via a statement post-16. Therefore it is important that the local education authority continues with its obligation to young people with deafness or any other disability that might be the subject of a statement. It is also the obligation of the Further Education Funding Council to meet the adequate needs of people with special needs who fall short of being statemented. The Further Education Funding Council has done a great deal of work on this matter to clarify the situation. It has invited the principal of Doncaster College to come and discuss the problem. It has offered to issue guidance. Only yesterday sought a detailed reply to the submission, which I know is in the hands of many noble Lords, answering point by point 1433 and clearing up the confusion between the distinct funding responsibilities of the FEFC and local authorities.

§ Lord Judd
My Lords, will the noble Baroness accept that we are all greatly encouraged that the Further Education Funding Council is to meet the principal of Doncaster College? Can she give an assurance that when this meeting has taken place the Further Education Funding Council will write to all similar institutions on the basis of that conversation and clarify the situation, as there is wider anxiety following the incidents at Doncaster?

§ Baroness Blatch
My Lords, I must make it clear that the Further Education Funding Council will continue to meet its obligations under the Act. But it is the local education authorities which continue to be responsible for young people with statements. For someone with blindness or deafness, or indeed both or another disability, who is the subject of a statement, and where the conditions of that pupil do not change at the age of 16, the local authority must accept the responsibility. However, the FEFC will also fund places at the college. On the noble Lord's second point, the FEFC will continue to clarify the point with any institution. I know that the college at Derby has been concerned about this area of funding. The FEFC will continue to make as clear as possible the distinction between the two sectors.

§ Baroness David
My Lords, is it right that some students are still missing out and are not being funded? That is my understanding.

§ Baroness Blatch
My Lords, it is not true but it relates to a point made by my noble friend Lord Lucas. One of the problems last year was that the local authorities were using, sadly, as a mechanism not statementing a child post-16 in order to allow the bill to fall to the FEFC. Last year the FEFC picked up some of those people precisely because it did not want young people to fall through the net. What it is trying to do now is to get back on a proper footing, as befits the legislation, so that local authorities have their responsibilities and meet their responsibilities under the Act. But what caused the confusion was the Further Education Funding Council doing the decent thing by young people last year.

§ Baroness Lockwood
My Lords, will the guidance to which the Minister referred make the position absolutely clear so that local authorities cannot then avoid any responsibility which they have for statemented children?

§ Baroness Blatch
My Lords, only last evening we had a good debate on the code of practice for young people with special needs. There is definitely a great deal of guidance contained within that code of practice for local education authorities. What we are saying to local education authorities—and it is well within the code of practice—is that they must consider the medium and longer-term needs of young people with special needs, particularly those with statements, much earlier 1434 in the process—not when they are 16 but when they are 13, 14 and 15—so that all the arrangements can be properly made in advance.