Debate contribution: Special Educational Needs: Crisis in Provision

Debate contribution by Mr Nick Mathison on 8 September 2025.

MLA

Mr Nick Mathison

Party at the time

Alliance Party

Date

8 September 2025

Type

Debate contribution

Business

Private Members' Business

Heading

Special Educational Needs: Crisis in Provision

Assembly identifier

Official Report component 5068902

Read the official Assembly record

Text

I begin by adding my words of welcome to Mr Burrows. I look forward to working with you on the Education Committee. I add to the tributes to Colin Crawford, whom I worked with for a short time on the Committee. I found him to be a gentleman. I suspect that you, Mr Burrows, may express your views slightly more forthrightly than Colin ever did at the Committee, and I look forward to that. I wish Colin all the best in his future endeavours. I was going to begin my remarks by saying that it was to be welcomed that we have had a debate with such a positive tone and one that parents of children with special educational needs who were watching would feel had adopted the approach that is required, through taking the issues seriously and ensuring that the difficulties, challenges and distress that parents have been through over the past number of months were properly acknowledged. The Minister, however, had other ideas, making some highly personalised attacks and using some really interesting distraction techniques in order to deflect from the issues. That was entirely unnecessary, because I agree with much of what he said in his contribution, and I want to support him. It was disappointing that he felt the need to personalise the debate in the way in which he did. I will leave my remarks there in that regard, because, ultimately, the debate is about the parents, children and young people who need effective SEN services, not about personalities in the Chamber. I reiterate, however, that my record on and commitment to delivering the reform of SEN services is very clear. Let me speak to some of the facts that the Minister highlighted. He referenced comments that I made about a freedom of information request that I had submitted to the EA asking for some specific information about when the Minister was formally notified of the scale of the challenge of placements for September 2025 and about the likely numbers involved. That freedom of information request came back stating very clearly that officials were briefed on the scale of the challenge in February 2025 and that the Minister was formally corresponded with in March. At no point have I suggested that that is when the SEN crisis began, and to suggest so is clearly an exaggeration and a misrepresentation. I will, however, highlight the point that the Minister was aware of likely numbers probably much earlier, but he certainly was as of February 2025. I therefore question why he waited until June 2025 to go out to schools to ask them whether they would please help. I do not think that it is inappropriate to say that that was too little, too late. I do not, however, discount the work that the Minister has delivered in this mandate on the SEN reform agenda, nor do I doubt his officials' commitment to delivering on it. Moving on, I do not intend to rehash what has already been covered in the debate. The motion is clear in setting out the problems in the SEN system and in what it is asking for, and it seems that there is going to be support for it across the Chamber. I will add to my colleagues' comments about the amendments. We have no issue with supporting them, and I find myself in the very strange position of saying that I agree wholeheartedly with pretty much everything that Mr Gaston said today.

I record my appreciation for the engagement that I have had with classroom assistants in Castle Gardens Primary School in my constituency. They highlighted very clearly to me the level of disparity between the different contracts that exist, even within one school, as well as the pay and job security disparities, the pressures that that puts on staff and the impact that it has on their morale. I therefore fully support the proposals in Mr Gaston's amendment. On Mr Carroll's amendment, I absolutely agree that the system should deliver a one-to-one classroom assistant for those children who require one. We should, however, also be open to creative thinking on the best way in which to meet children's needs effectively.

I thank the Member for the intervention. I am conscious of time, but, yes, we would be keen to engage further with the Health Committee. I felt that our concurrent Committee meeting in the previous session was really effective in drawing out some of the challenges around workforce and some of the lack of data that we have on the workforce that is even present in the education system from the health sector. It has never been acceptable that children with SEN are routinely left unplaced at their key transition years in our education system. It is not acceptable that, despite years of the problem being highlighted and after multiple reports and recommendations, which have been referenced here today, the Department has still not got to grips with the problem. I do not underestimate the scale of that challenge — that is not said lightly — but it is clear to me that, if that was how we ran the mainstream admission system, parents would be outraged. However, we seem to have reached a point where it has become normalised for our children with SEN to remain unplaced, particularly at key transition years. It is important to challenge any narrative that this year was, in some way, better because the raw numbers may have been lower. Of course, it is welcome that no children are officially unplaced at the moment. However, we were clear when we heard evidence from the EA in Committee that the director who was speaking in that evidence session would not let members make the statement that that was an improvement. He was clear that it is not an improvement. He was clear that the level of pressure and leverage that they had to apply to schools to get those children placed was unacceptable. He did not have confidence that, for the year ahead, there was a clear road map, a clear pathway for ensuring that children would be placed. That is simply because he does not have the resources at his disposal to ensure that, when he approaches a school and asks them to take a placement, he has a mechanism to say where the placement will go. It is an ask; it is a request. We would not accept that in the mainstream system. We would not consider area planning to be that we ask schools whether they would like some more places. That is not how it operates. I do not downplay the challenge to the EA and the Department in dealing with the issue. We have already heard that the numbers of children presenting with SEN are rising. Money is in short supply, and the Minister does not tire of reminding us of that. Crucially, as I have referenced, we operate a system where schools seem to behave as independent entities and can say no to a specialist provision if they wish to. I know that schools do that for a range of reasons: they do not have confidence that they will be supported; they are worried about whether there will be enough resource; or they are worried that they will be asked to deliver something at the eleventh hour, with not enough time. However, with all those caveats noted — I say this in good faith — I ask the Minister to come back to the Assembly with a clear plan for how he will deal with placements specifically and how he will ensure that, in the areas and the schools where it is identified that placements are required, the placements will be delivered in those settings. It cannot be enough to just ask politely for schools to help. We have to go beyond that. My time will not permit me to speak to the delivery plan in detail, but it is welcome that a plan around transformation has come forward. However, it is a big, complex document. It is ambitious in scope, and, by that definition, it is difficult to track and measure success, so we need the Minister to set out clearly what the delivery plan will do to make parents and children feel that the system is different and that something has changed. We have 18 months left of the mandate. We are in year 2 of the five-year plan. We really are at the point where parents are impatient for delivery. When will things change? The challenge is clear, and I am not here to attribute blame to anybody. There have been years of systemic failure, but I have no doubt that the people working on the issues in the EA and the Department are committed to delivering change. However, we need to be realistic about where we are. Resource is extremely scarce. We are beyond further reviews, pilots, trials, testing and reviewing. We need to be clear: where can investment be delivered in the transformation plan for it to make a real difference? Families and children need it desperately. We cannot waste any more time in this mandate with pilots. We need to move beyond that. We also need assurances — clear assurances — that the failure to effectively and appropriately place our children with SEN will not be repeated on this Minister's watch. I hope that we hear that coming through clearly. I hope that we can move the tone of the debate on. I look forward to the Education Committee's inquiry into the matter. I have no intention of personalising that debate. I want to hear the evidence of parents, children, young people and teachers and to listen to them. This is not about political point-scoring. It is not about personal attacks. It is about delivering for the children who need it in our system.

1,651 words. Text as published by the Northern Ireland Assembly.

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