Latest news from the Policy and Campaigns Team

All the latest news from the Policy and Campaigns Team at TreeHouse:

10.01.08

Education and Skills Bill

The Education and Skills Bill will raise the minimum age at which young people can leave education or training to 18. The education participation age would be raised to 17 in 2013 and 18 in 2015 and to establish a registration, monitoring and categorisation regime for independent schools. The Education and Skills Committee is currently considering amendments to the Bill.

The Bill incorporates key elements of the Leitch Review and the “Raising Expectations” Green Paper and addresses the UK’s long-term skills need. It also places responsibility onto employers to enable young people to undertake training elsewhere for the equivalent of one day a week. The Bill will also rationalise the regulation and monitoring regime for independent schools and non-maintained special schools in line with the government’s wider simplification and bureaucracy cutting agenda.

TreeHouse has supported the amendment suggested by the Special Education Consortium and has been working in partnership with the National Autistic Society to raise awareness of potential problems in the Bill for young people with SEN. TreeHouse will continue to lobby for amendments to the Bill to ensure young people with SEN will be appropriately supported.

Read TreeHouse's briefing on the Education and Skills Bill Second Reading

31.10.07

Disabled Children (Family Support) Bill 2007 – EDCM are launching a Bill to give disabled children and their families a legal right to short break care

TreeHouse is supporting the new Disabled Children (Family Support) Bill 2007 which the Every Disabled Child Matters campaign and Gary Streeter MP are launching on 13 November 2007 in the House of Commons.

Last year EDCM and Gary Streeter MP sponsored the 2006 Disabled Children (Family Support) Bill which put the issue of support for families with disabled children on the government’s agenda and although it was not passed it no doubt influenced the Disabled Children Review outcomes which allocated £280 million investment in short breaks as part of a package of investment announced in the Aiming High for Disabled Children report.

Steve Broach, EDCM Campaign Manager, said: ‘Through the publication of Aiming High for Disabled Children in May, the government has shown it is serious about improving the lives of disabled children and their families. We are delighted with the new investment of £280 million, which will start to deliver a step change in the way short break services are delivered. However, families reach crisis point not because they are carers, but because they are forced to care without any support. In order for families across the country to lead ordinary lives, they need a right to short break services. That is why we are urging MPs to support this Bill to change the law.’

If the Disabled Children (Family Support) Bill 2007 became law it would ensure that a specific duty is placed on local authorities to provide short break care for families with disabled children who provide a high level of care.

For more information about the Bill please visit the EDCM website

23.04.07

TreeHouse question in the House of Lords

Lord Tim Clement-Jones, Chair of the TreeHouse trustees, tabled a question in the House of Lords asking about why people with autism are not granted a blue parking badge as standard.
View the question on Parliament Live TV (please forward 30 minutes to get to the right section)

Autism blue badge delay attacked from the BBC website 24 April 2007. A report on the question Lord Tim Clement Jones, TreeHouse Chair of Trustees, asked in the House of Lords with regards to the blue badge scheme.