Hansard

In March, I led a members’ business debate on the subject of the presumption of mainstreaming, as addressed in the excellent Enable Scotland report “#IncludED in the Main?!” It is a measure of the importance that is placed on this subject by members of the Parliament that, by the time seven MSPs had signed my motion, every party in the Parliament was accounted for. I therefore warmly welcome this further opportunity to debate mainstreaming and, more important, the release of the “Consultation on Excellence and Equity for All”, which moves the discussion on. I am sure that Enable Scotland will be heartened to see the new guidance, which acknowledges, in a general sense, the validity of its concerns.

As the introduction to the draft guidance states,

“At present, despite the strength of the legislative and policy basis and the ambitious vision for all children and young people, more needs to be done, and more can be done, to get it right for every child and to ensure that they are all experiencing equity and excellence.”

As I did in March, let me declare an interest. My wife is a member of a hard-pressed additional support needs team in a secondary school. I know that I am not alone among MSP colleagues on this, but my passion for this subject is fired more by experience of constituency casework.

I entirely support the presumption in favour of mainstreaming, but the way in which it has been interpreted and implemented by some local authorities absolutely needs to be looked at. The document, the consultation and the accompanying research open the door to doing just that.

Let me focus on two specific points that are covered in the guidance, which have one thing in common: the fact that, in some instances, they are currently being approached in anything but the way in which the guidance anticipates.

Paragraph 32 addresses a situation in which it may be necessary to look to alternatives to mainstream settings for a child or young person, for example because their behavioural issues are such that they would not benefit from being in that environment and/or the education of other children would be impacted.

I suggest that, in reality, other than in the most extreme circumstances, pupils who are disruptive are being placed into mainstream environments, albeit some of the time they are perhaps being catered for in learning support bases, with little real regard for their impact on others. It is left to already hard-pressed staff to manage the situation as best they can.

Paragraph 33 covers the issue of unreasonable public expenditure and states:

“Each local authority ... has to consider what a reasonable level of public expenditure is within the context of their commitments.”

It focuses on a situation in which

“the cost of adapting a school environment to support ... one young person”

is prohibitive and accepts that, in such a case, perhaps alternative provision can be considered. Again, though, does that reflect how things are playing out currently, especially where an authority has few, if any, special schools at its disposal? Is it not all too often the case that, rather than sourcing or funding a relatively expensive specialist placement, some councils will persuade parents that they can accommodate their child within supported mainstream provision? However, in practice, that is very often done without providing the additional resources that are required to meet that pupil’s needs, while risking diminishing support for others. The draft guidance and the consultation on it have the potential to challenge and change that approach, where it exists.

As Liz Smith indicated, this is not an easy subject to consider with complete candour. For example, medical advances that have been made since 2000 mean that we have children with very complex needs being catered for in mainstream school settings in a way that almost certainly was not envisaged 17 years ago, with all the impact that that has on resources and, indeed, on the support that is being afforded to other ASN youngsters. Sitting alongside that are the expectation levels of some parents. When we look at matters dispassionately, we can find that there are unreasonable expectations in some cases. However, they are understandable if we put ourselves in those parents’ shoes. I have come across such situations in casework, but I have been struck far more by instances where the system as delivered is letting families down. That happens so often for avoidable reasons that have less to do with finances and more to do with lack of service cohesion or, sadly, the grasp of need.

To illustrate that latter point, I will highlight a case that I noted in the member’s business debate in March concerning a teenage constituent with complex needs who had been unable to attend the local secondary school base for some months. Ahead of an effort to try to reintegrate her, her mum was invited to visit the newly refurbished base facilities, which she had been told would be an asset in catering for her daughter, who is, among other things, autistic. However, the mum told me that the brand-new sensory room’s colour scheme was not autism friendly, that the room was tiny and that the soundproofing was so inadequate that, sitting in it, she could hear the kids passing in the adjoining corridor.

Ultimately, that case had a welcome outcome, as have others that I have been involved in. However, the stress for all concerned, over many months, was entirely avoidable. As the Enable report laid bare, that is not a unique experience. When parents and carers were asked to describe their experience of the school system, 67 per cent used the word “battle”, 77 per cent used the word “stressful” and 44 per cent used the word “alone”.

I will finish on a couple of optimistic notes. First, as we are hearing in the debate, the publication of the “Consultation on Excellence and Equity for All” has reignited the debate around what the presumption in favour of mainstreaming is. That is a good thing, and I hope that the measured, constructive tone that is being taken in the debate is the shape of things to come. Secondly, I have—admittedly with mixed success—sought to engage with secondary schools in my constituency on how they intend to deploy the pupil equity fund moneys that are coming their way. To be honest, I was a bit worried that, when schools were spending that money, many ASN pupils would be forgotten or their interests would be pushed to the bottom, but what I have found is the reverse of that. Those schools are working with cluster primaries in a way that, among other things, gives rise to the hope that the needs of all youngsters will be identified early and met as they progress through their educational journey. Pupil equity funding has the potential to change things for the better; so, too, does this guidance and its accompanying research.