6. Will the Cabinet Secretary provide a statement on the provision of education to children and young people in Gwent who have a sensory impairment? OAQ52950

Thank you, Lynne. Through our national mission, we are reforming our education system to enable every learner, regardless of background or personal circumstances, to reach their potential. Local authorities have a duty to meet the needs of all children with special needs, including those with sensory impairments.

Thank you, Cabinet Secretary. I know that you are well aware of my deep concern about the decision by Newport council to withdraw from the Gwent-wide specialist education service for children with sensory impairment, known in Gwent as SenCom. Disappointingly, this decision was taken with no consultation, either with families or with partner local authorities, and I'm deeply concerned that the withdrawal will destabilise services for a very disadvantaged group of children and young people who are currently receiving a high-quality specialist service. What steps can the Welsh Government take to ensure that children and young people in Gwent are not disadvantaged by this decision?

Thank you very much, Lynne, for the question today and the correspondence that you have been engaged in with me and officials regarding the SenCom service, which was a very, very good example of how regional working and local authorities were pooling resources to create a very specialised service to meet the needs of a specific group of children, which is perhaps difficult to do when working alone. Effective partnership working is a key factor in ensuring that resources are used effectively to support learners with additional learning needs, especially at a time when resources are not infinite. I have written to Newport City Council leader, Councillor Debbie Wilcox, to establish what arrangements are being put in place to ensure that learners, families and schools, not just in Newport but across the region, will not be adversely affected by this decision.

Should every school have the ability to serve children with sensory impairment to the same degree, or does the Cabinet Secretary believe it is better for schools to specialise and have particular schools with well-developed expertise in this area?

Well, Mark, I don't believe that there is a one size fits all; it very much depends on the needs of individual children, and, indeed, the views of the parents of those individual children about whether they want their child to be educated within their community, and the cohort within the community, or whether that child is better served by very specialist placements. What is really important as we moved through our ALN transformation programme is that schools of whatever variety are equipped to deal effectively with additional learning needs in its variety of forms and are there to respond appropriately to ensure that each child reaches their full potential. What is challenging in the SenCom case is that this is a specific group of children with very specific needs, and by working together, SenCom have been able to provide a multidisciplinary team that has been able to provide that very specialist support. But what is absolutely fundamental to our ALN transformation programme is that the child sits at the centre.