Chamber and committees

I have a question on that particular point.

That was fascinating and reminded me of a previous life, when I looked into disability discrimination and internalised ableism. There is a connection between that and the points that you have made.

You talked about placing requests and the reasons that local authorities give for not granting such requests. How many of those cases involve the local authority saying that it cannot afford to have the child in mainstream education?

I ask that because a lot of what I have heard through my casework shows that, when parents apply for a placement in special education if they are really concerned that the support that their young person needs is not available in mainstream education, the school refuses the application for various reasons. There is not the necessary support in mainstream education, because of the costs associated with that, so we would expect the number of requests for pupils not to be in mainstream education to increase. I am trying to make the point that I would expect more local authorities to say that it is too expensive to teach certain pupils in the mainstream environment. Do you see that happening?

Forgive me; I am sorry. That was unintentional. I was just responding to the point about placing requests.

First, convener, I apologise for stepping across Bill Kidd’s area of questioning earlier. It was genuinely unintentional.

On the CSP, which we were just beginning to discuss, parents and pupils tell us that it is really difficult to get something written down or a plan of action to put in place the support that young people need. School staff tell us that although all sorts of things are written down—obviously there are issues around workload and so on—the fact is that only one plan has a statutory footing, and that is of course the CSP. How important is that statutory footing, notwithstanding the limitations on the CSP, which I will come on to?

The rules around the CSP say that the education authority’s view must be taken into consideration and is needed. Do you think that that should also include the views of the young person?

I am slightly disappointed that we need to consider the regulations, on the basis that free school meals should be getting delivered across primary 1 to primary 7 already, as the Government set out that it would do. Nonetheless, it is sensible that, in the interim, while we wait for the Government to come good on that commitment, we proceed with this uprating, which is important.

It would have been useful had the SSI been used to encourage schools to reach out to families in a more proactive way to find those families who may need the support that free school meals can offer. Other than that, I have no further comment.

Absolutely. I am sorry. I was just responding to what was said, but I take your point, convener.

Do you think that the requirement in the legislation for CSPs to involve interagency work—notwithstanding how important such work is, which I will come to in a minute—restricts some people’s ability to access CSPs?

Given that a CSP is largely available for people who have complex needs and that “complex” usually means that it is necessary for social work or another agency to be involved, do you think that there needs to be a plan for people who do not always require the involvement of other agencies? Could there be a CSP for such people simply in relation to education?

Yes.