The National Autistic Society (NAS) has described the Permanent Secretary of the Department for Education’s comments about autism as “misleading” and “very concerning”.
The comments by Susan Acland-Hood were made at an inquiry by the Public Accounts Committee (PAC) on support for children and young people with special educational needs and disabilities (SEND) last week.
Acland-Hood referred to autism as a ‘spectrum condition’ that is “not susceptible to a ‘yes or no’ diagnostic process.”
Speaking at the evidence session, she said: “ASD [Autism Spectrum Disorder] used… to be described as ‘autism’, it used to be seen as a kind of ‘you have it or you don’t have it’ condition. It is now really widely recognised that it is a spectrum condition and so it’s not susceptible to a kind of ‘yes-or-no’ diagnostic process. It’s much more susceptible to an understanding that there is a range of responses that you will see in the normal distribution of the population.”
Joey Nettleton Burrows, Policy and Public Affairs Manager at the National Autistic Society, said the comments indicate a misunderstanding of autism among the DfE, and they have since written to the Department to provide further information about autism and how it is diagnosed.
“It is very concerning to see the Permanent Secretary’s comment about autism as a spectrum condition which appears to show a misunderstanding of what this means. The phrasing that autism is no longer something that people ‘have or don’t have’ and that there is not a ‘yes-or-no diagnostic process’ are misleading and reinforce the incorrect and damaging view that ‘everyone is a little bit autistic’ as well as diminishing how important a diagnosis can be,” he said.
“We have written to Government officials to clarify this and provide further information about autism and diagnosis. Only 26% of autistic children are happy in schools and seven in 10 parents say their child doesn’t have the right school place. The Government needs to urgently make changes to the school system so all autistic young people get the education they are entitled too, but to do this it is imperative that officials responsible for implementing these changes understand autism,” he added.
During the inquiry, senior officials from the Department (including Acland-Hood; Juliet Chua, Director-General Schools; and Alison Ismail, Senior Responsible Officer for SEN) were asked about the overall picture of the support available for children with SEND, performance within the system, and what action is being taken to create a sustainable SEND system.
It came following the publication of the NAO report which found that the SEND system is financially unsustainable without reform, with local authorities facing serious financial risks as a result.
The inquiry heard how SEND provision varies significantly across England and how insufficient data collection has led to an inability to track interventions effectively. Concerns were also raised about the financial burden on local authorities, the adversarial nature of the system, and the need for systemic reform to improve outcomes for the 1.9 million young people who have special educational needs.
However, while the PAC said the session would see the DfE “challenged on how to ensure the system delivers better outcomes for children and young people”, some SEND advocates say the questioning was not rigorous enough.
Writing on X, full time carer Elissa Noves said: “Terrible show from the MPs – nodding along as the civil servants waffled nothing and outright lied. Plenty of opportunity for them to have asked about the impact on children and young people, how these plans fit within the law, whether what they were being told was factual…but nope.”
Meanwhile, SNJ’s Rachel Filmer, a SEND campaigner and parent of disabled twins boys, said the Commons committee “let the Department for Education off the hook” and very little attention was paid to the thousands of children currently struggling with a severe lack of specialist support.
In response, a PAC spokesperson said: “The Public Accounts Committee scrutinises value for money in critical areas of Government policy delivery, in this case the support provided for children and young people with special educational needs.
“Sessions are underpinned by National Audit Office reports and written evidence, with witnesses also asked to provide additional information in advance.”
They added that a report with recommendations for Government will be published in due course.
The Department for Education has also been contacted for comment.
