Reform councils to cut SEN spending

A lot of councils don’t meet their statutory requirements anyway due to lack of money.

it’s common that parents need to take them to tribunal/review to get a needs assessment or EHCP,

I expect reform will continue that and underfund even more.

it’s one thing councils having a legal obligation it’s another making them actually do it. (And I do blame central government for not funding the system properly).

I've got 3 sen kids actually and don't use facebook

It's not on their manifesto

But 30 of them?

This election was thoroughly depressing, I'm glad to live in a county which returned less than 10% reform, and my local area is fully independent. A big issue is that the average turnout was around 30%, had more voted it may have been a very different story, but at the moment many feel let down by all parties, so didn't bother, I only voted as I knew 2 of the independent candidates and they have done a lot for our village.

I do hold labour responsible for this debacle, they have made such a mess in the past year that people are feeling a bit desperate, and that's when people look to the more extreme options.

There has already been cuts to SEN since Labour came in, my daughters mainstream school with a specialist ARP was thriving but in real terms has lost around 15% funding since the general election. And the impact of this has been felt across mainstream too with resources diverted from there to ARP.

I think they will try to cut as much as they can from as many who aren’t their voters or donors as they can.

If they can handover SEN services to a private donor then they might be safe.

Our council in now under control of Reform. Absolutely disgusted with them and the idiots who believe voting for them will improve their lives ! I’ll be taking them to tribunal if they so much as lay a finger on SEN funding that will be detrimental to our DD. They are a bunch of cunts as are the people who voted for them !!

^This

For those mentioning Councils having a lack of funds... my London council has 30 x staff earning more than 100K a year. Perhaps they could re-structure, cut the fat cat salaries and use their budgets more effectively.

It wouldn't surprise me what they have up their sleeve. I'm sure for most people, as long as they stop the boats, they'll not be bothered, until they come for them.

They will approve a budget next year and they have some flexibility and how to prioritise things within certain parameters.

But most services are statutory and much of central government funding comes with a purpose. So the dedicated schools grant which include high needs block funding can't suddenly be spent on stop the boat patrol officer.

And I wonder why they were campaigning to leave the ECHR 🤔 I can’t imagine…

I work for one of these councils although I'm cross I don't think they will be able to make these cuts as as others have said Education and Children's services are statutory and they have to provide them. Also all the working from home stuff..where I work most people are hybrid so they have shut (and sold) a load of offices...they would have to spend loads to get enough desks to bring everyone back...in addition there are squillions of Children's services and education jobs in neighbouring not reform Las where people will go if they trest workers badly and then they will have to pay expensive agency staff... There is a big Union presence...think Farage and co are in for a shock when the realise what they can't do.

It’s a statutory service so no, they can’t.

Most council funding is provided by central government (council tax is just a proportion of it) and can only be spent on the things it is provided for. This also applies to SEN funding.

Councils are under funded for social care generally and often allocate extra spending for it (at the expense of funding other activities which do not have hypothecated revenues from government eg libraries, road sweeping, parks). The lack of appropriate social care funding is a major problem and causes misery for many people.

My thoughts exactly. The guardian is a spam left wing rag. Wouldn’t trust it, like I don’t trust the daily mail.

Why are they printing claims rather than facts. More to the point, why are sensible people taking it seriously. It’s like the Daily mail saying the Labour Party are going to tax education, cut disability benefits and axe pensioners heating allowances. Oh. Even the daily mail didn’t claim that in advance.

Let’s wait for the facts.

This is reform we’re talking about here. Given their contempt for minority groups I wouldn’t be at all surprised if they cut SEN funding. It’s what people with their ideology do.

Farage has already said he wants to sack all DEI workers because councils are spending too much on equality and diversity, and banning WFH. This will hugely affect disabled workers but no one gives a shit because they don’t think things through. That’s one way in which they are showing utter contempt for people with disabilities and other minority groups. Cutting SEN funding will just be the another.

The sad truth is we already have a system which largely relies on the parents, and schools, being able to fight against the system. It seems very likely that is going to become even more likely

@Charlize43 he has indeed made comments about SEN though - it’s not beyond the realms of likelihood

There's a big gap between saying nonsense to influence gullible voters and breaking the law. The Children and Families Act 2014 obliges councils to fund SEND provision. If Reform councillors instruct officers to break the law the government will intervene.

There is a crisis in SEND funding because most councils don't have the funds to meet legal obligations but it's outside the remit of councillors to unilaterally withdraw SEND support.

The key word here is claim as in 'Lib Dems claim'

This is fake news. Clearly The Guardian are feeling very threatened by Reform to have have published such an article. It is clickbait and scaremongering.

Reminds me of the articles you see in the Daily Fail where so minor government person speculates about Putin using Nuclear Weapons...

Exactly the same here, Reform took our area - unfortunately not surprised, we have a massive amount of elderly and it was heavily impacted with rioting idiots last summer.

I saw Old Nige's (again totally unsurprising) comments on Sen children last week so I'm fully braced for cuts and more bs to follow.

Local authority funding as is made up of 'budget pots'. Our local authority have already decided their budget for this financial year so it would be quite difficult to change funding allocations immediately as they've already been made. However, that doesn't stop the councillors from blocking additional funding (SEN unfortunately is always massively over budget) and you may see visible cuts in assessments, EHCP funding etc, though again this may not become visible until the next financial year. Given that the Reform party leader has publicly said that he believes SEN is over diagnosed I suspect that funding for EHCNA (the assessment phase of EHCP) will be most visibly hit. As there's not enough funding for educational psychologists etc anyway, if they then decide to make cuts, they will then hit the problem most councils have of parents appealing and taking their case to judicial review and the statutory obligation to pay for private assessment when a local authority fails to meet time frames. SEN departments in local authorities can be assessed by Ofsted and can fail the inspection. Which then requires the local authority to submit and adhere to an improvement plan, which then costs even more money than the cuts they decide to make! Local authority councillors don't get to rewrite codes of practice, so they can be held accountable. Cutting SEN funding could also ultimately lose a local Councillor the 'we like you' vote.