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In this Report
Commons Written Answers (12 Jan 2006)
Schools for the Hearing Impaired
Mr. Gibb: To ask the Secretary of State for Education and Skills how many schools for the hearing impaired there were in each year since 1996.
Maria Eagle: The available information is given in the table. The type of special need for which a school is formally approved to make provision is collected from special schools only.
Other (17 Jan 2006)
Uncorrected Evidence
Q48 Miss Begg: Okay. Very quickly, when you have got work-focused interviews, and I know you are a range of different organisations, do you have advisers with different specialties for the different disabilities or do you think the disability is almost irrelevant and it is looking at the person? Does it need a different approach for mental health and the other big one is the blind? My local Blind Society say that they get no help at all from anybody whether it is Jobcentre Plus or whether it is any of you lot, they are just forgotten completely.
Mr Lester: I think that goes to some degree to what Keith said earlier. It depends on who the client group are. If the impairment is not the most significant reason they are not at work, then you can have a generic-type programme, which is the kind of thing Keith was talking about earlier. If the impairment is a significant barrier to work or they perceive it to be - and there is a very important point there about self-perception, then you need some specialist help to deal with that. From our point of view as a provider (with my provider hat on again) we have some specialists to deal with some areas of learning difficulty in particular but we have other generic advisers who help deal with people generically because impairment is the lesser issue and it is self-confidence and all those other issues you identified earlier that are barriers to work.
Mr Faulkner: I feel very strongly on this one. The starting point for us has to be building a relationship with the individual and the conversation does not start off with what the disability might be just because they have come to NDDP. It talks about them, their environment, their family house, as Ian has said, all of these things. At the end of that we have to come to a decision as to what is appropriate. We are a partnership-based organisation and that is why we work closely with other people on this table and elsewhere. We are a general provider. We hold NDDP in 14 locations but we are not a specialist in this area, so we will then go to partners to help us provide the right solution that is appropriate. The best example I can give you is right here in Derby. As many of you may be aware, there is the Royal School for the Deaf here and there is an unusually high number of profoundly deaf people in Derby. In that case, we do have our own specialist consultant, with a level two sign language capability, and we have built an in-house ability where it is relevant, but it is very important only to introduce that when you are certain that is an important part of the solution. In 70 per cent of cases it is not.
Other (25 Jan 2006)
Uncorrected Evidence
7.2 Human rights and 'good relations'
7.2.1 The Prime Minister's Strategy Unit report, Improving theLife Chances of Disabled People noted that, "Many families with disabled children would like to access mainstream services - including early education, play and childcare - with adequate support where needed. This not only benefits many disabled children, enabling them to take part in activities in the same way as their non-disabled peers, but non-disabled children also benefit from growing up in a diverse and inclusive environment.".
7.2.2 Recent research by the charity Stonewall concerning the nature and causes of prejudice against marginalised groups, including disabled people, confirmed the 'contact theory' developed by Professor Miles Hewstone and others in finding that: "overall...personal contact and familiarity with difference are keys which unlock the shackles of prejudice. The research found that places of work and learning were the best environments through which to generate relationships which helped overcome prejudice and discrimination.
7.2.3 The international statement on the future of 'special' education, the Salamanca Statement, set out the international aspirations for 'good relations':
"Inclusive schooling is the most effective means for building solidarity between children with special needs and their peers. Assignment of children to special schools - or special classes or sections within a school on a permanent basis - should be the exception, to be recommended only in those infrequent cases where it is clearly demonstrated that education in regular classrooms is incapable of meeting a child's educational or social needs or when it is required for the welfare of the child or that of other children." (UN 1994)
7.2.4 In her recent pamphlet, Special Educational Needs: a new look, Mary Warnock has argued that placement in a 'mainstream' school might infringe a child's right to personal development, and so could be held in breach of their human rights. However, the European Court has made it clear that article 8 of the Convention on Human Rights includes 'the right to personal development and the right to establish relationships with other human beings and the outside world'. As such, it could be said that placement in a school which separates a child from 'the outside world' is an infringement of article 8.
7.2.5 One of the many examples of where this is relevant is bullying. The prevalence of bullying and the issue of class sizes have both been cited as justification for children being placed in special schools. However, this not only fails to tackle the problem of bullying per se within a school, it also responds in an excessively risk averse way. Non-disabled children experience bullying and can find large class sizes difficult to thrive in, but we do not advocate their removal from mainstream schools.
7.2.6 It is also important to remember that specific groups view separate schools as a more effective route to inclusion, and as a means of maintaining cultural and linguistic identity, such as within the Deaf community.
7.2.7 There are a number of ways in which schools can seek to promote 'good relations'. The DRC launched a Citizenship and Disability resource pack in 2003, to actively engage students in thinking about their role in creating an equal society for disabled people. The pack consisted of lesson plans, alongside 'Talk', the DRC's award winning short film, designed to provide a resource for teachers to champion disability equality in school. 5000 copies of the Citizenship Pack are in schools throughout England and Scotland.
7.2.8 School Councils can also have a strong role in increasing accountability given to pupils in the development and management of their schools. Some School Councils are particularly effective in the support they give to disabled pupils and the steps they have taken to improve access and inclusion. As such, they could play an important role in helping schools meet their duties under DDA 2005 and contribute to the development of Disability Equality Schemes.
7.2.9 The DRC view is that solutions to the challenges faced, are not to be found in the continued segregation of disabled children and children with SEN, but through inclusion and real school improvement.
8.1 In 1928 the Wood Committee stressed the unity of educational provision, special and non-special. During the debate on the 1944 Education Act, the Parliamentary Secretary Chuter Ede said: "May I say that I do not want to insert in the Bill any words which make it appear that the normal way to deal with a child who suffers from any of these disabilities is to be put into a special school where he will be segregated." In line with this, s33(2) of the 1944 Education Act provided for the majority of disabled children to be educated in ordinary schools and the subsequent Department guidance contained detailed suggestions as to how this might be achieved. In 1970, the Chronically Sick and Disabled persons Act ( a private members bill) required LEAs as far as was practicable to provide for the education of deaf-blind, autistic and acutely dyslexic children in maintained or assisted schools. The Education Act 1976, in Section 10, required LEAs to arrange for special education of all handicapped pupils to be given in county and voluntary schools, except where this was impractical, incompatible with efficient instruction in the schools or involved unreasonable public expenditure. Section 10 was to come into force on a date selected by the Secretary of State and in January 1997 the Secretary of State announced that before deciding upon a date she would consult widely, and await the outcome of the Warnock Committee's enquiry. At the same time she made it clear that the new legislation was not introducing a new principle, but rather giving new impetus to an old one.
8.2 When published, The Warnock Report made no new or original recommendations with regard to the law on integration/inclusion. It merely recommended that "before Section 10 (of the Education Act 1976) comes into force the Secretary of State for Education and
Science should issue comprehensive guidance to local education authorities on the framing of their future arrangements for special educational provision." (7. 59)
8.3 The Education Act 1981 included the qualified duty to integrate children with special educational needs in ordinary schools for the first time in implemented legislation and took over from s10 of the Education Act 1976. The 1981 Act added the duty on LEAs to take parents' views into account and added a duty on school governors to use their best endeavours to ensure that children with special educational needs engage in the activities of the school together with children who do not have special educational needs. But the basic 'integration' duty in the Education Act 1981 simply re-stated s10 of the Education Act 1976 and owed nothing to The Warnock Report.
8.4 Around 20% of pupils are considered as having special educational needs at some point in their school life and the large majority of these are educated in mainstream schools, as has been the case for many decades. No one (including Mary Warnock) argues that all children with special education needs should be in special schools; nor even that the majority of them should be. It is therefore unfortunate that Mary Warnock's intemperate dismissal of inclusion ignores the large measure of common ground which exists amongst parents, professionals and government on the issue of inclusion. She refers to the very real problems facing some disabled children, who are bullied in mainstream schools, but is it really an acceptable adult response to suggest that the solution lies in removing the victims of the bullying to special schools? Mary Warnock also refers to the ideal of the 'small school' and it is true that some parents of children with special needs (and some professionals) feel strongly that school size is a crucial factor in determining whether a child's inclusion is possible, or likely to be beneficial to the child. This is an important issue, but Warnock's seeming determination to grab the headlines and politicise the attack on inclusion has ensured that the detail (bullying, school size) has simply not been discussed.
8.5 IPSEA's experience is that a well-written statement, quantifying the support a child is entitled to receive and thereby guaranteeing that support, is an absolute requirement if inclusion is to be successful. Vaguely written statements are a deterrent to parents expressing a preference for a place in a mainstream school. They do not know what support their child will receive; still worse, there is no guarantee that their child will receive any support.
8.6 It is an irony that the Government should have launched an attack on the statementing system in 1997 at the same time as launching its attempt to promote inclusion. It is extraordinary that, some eight years later, the Government is still unable to grasp the contradictory and self-defeating nature of these policies, despite the growing backlash against inclusion which it has itself provoked.
Commons Written Answers (30 Jan 2006)
Disability Living Allowance
John Battle: To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions how many people claimed the mobility component of disability living allowance in each year since 1997 in (a) Leeds West constituency and (b) Leeds metropolitan district.
Mrs. McGuire: The administration of disability living allowance is a matter for the chief executive of the Disability and Carers Service, Mr. Terry Moran. He will write to the hon. Member with the information requested.
Letter from Terry Moran, dated 30 January 2006:
You asked the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, how many people claimed the mobility component of disability living allowance in each year between 1997 to 2005 in (a) Leeds West constituency and (b) Leeds Metropolitan district.
The Minister for Disabled People, Anne McGuire MP, promised you a substantive reply from the Chief Executive of the Disability and Carers Service.
The information requested is not available. Such information as is available is in the following table:
Table 2 (Word
Document)
Mr. Ruffley: To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions how many claimants of disability living allowance there were in each year since its introduction, broken down by type of disability; and what the expenditure was in each case in each year.
Mrs. McGuire: The available information is in the following tables.
Commons Written Answers (30 Jan 2006)
British Sign Language
Mr. Boswell: To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions if he will make a statement on (a) his Department's projects to support access to British Sign Language and (b) the recruitment of tutors for this purpose.
Mrs. McGuire: My Department has recently provided a total of £1.5 million funding for:
six initiatives to contribute to establishing a GB wide framework to support the recruitment, training and deployment of BSL tutors, to enhance their numbers, status and levels of qualification; and
four initiatives to promote access for BSL users through awareness raising among employers, among service providers and in the wider community.
Examples of these projects include:
a project which developed online curriculum material and established online learning facilities;
a project which developed a family sign language curriculum that will allow BSL tutors to deliver appropriate training in BSL to the families of deaf children;
and a project providing practical workplace solutions at the point of need for interaction between deaf BSL users and hearing people—an extensive online resource covering BSL awareness for employers and colleagues, including the deaf person's first day in a new job; opportunities to learn BSL from basic signs through to quite advanced levels; and work specific BSL dictionaries to be accessed by both deaf and hearing people.
BSL tutors were involved in developing, piloting and using the materials produced by the projects. A conference was held on 7 December 2005 to disseminate lessons learned and to raise awareness of and promote take-up of project outputs and products.
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