We are about halfway through the four-year period of implementation, so in the last few months we've commissioned a lot of research to have a data-driven understanding of what's happening on the ground. I think it is fair to say that there's variability in relation to how the Act is being implemented in different parts of Wales, which may explain some of the responses that you had from council leaders, because there will be variation between authorities, between schools, on different approaches.
Some of the clear themes that have emerged from the reviews that we've commissioned—including also, by the way, the work that Estyn has done in this space—is around, firstly, the need for greater consistency, and I've spoken myself to the president of the education tribunal in relation to this and other issues, what can we do to make sure that the understanding of local authorities, of schools, of parents and learners themselves, of both rights, responsibilities, processes, transparency, rights of appeal, is clearer and more consistent across Wales, so there is work we are going to be doing in that space. We brought authorities together in October to share some of this insight with them, and I think my take on that is that people were surprised at the level of variation and will want to understand why that's happening. So, we will provide specific additional training in relation to how the Act is meant to work so that there is less inconsistency.
I’ve touched and won't repeat the point I made earlier about funding. We’ll do a review of that to understand what is behind some of the variation we are seeing in that. We’ve also learnt that we need to look at how we are encouraging collaboration between different parts of the system. So, that could be between schools and local authorities. Sometimes that works very well, sometimes it's more challenging, and we also need to recognise that the balance of responsibility between authorities and schools will vary depending on the level of central provision and school-based provision in different authorities. But also, the work between local authorities and local health boards, so the work that designated education clinical lead officers are doing at the moment to identify some key performance indicators, which are there to both support and report on the collaboration between authorities and health boards, is really important.
Just to go back to the point we touched on earlier: the fundamental model here is a social model, not a medicalised model, but, clearly, the health boards, for some students, have a role in delivering parts of the individual development plan and making sure that set of relationships works consistently as well is really important.
So, there are some clear themes and we have—I set some of this out in my statement in the Chamber yesterday—some very specific steps that we are taking to reflect that.