Has the Government done anything so far which we can say is of benefit to society?

Here's the link it says for leicestershire but if you type changes to transport for pupils with SEN in your browser bar, you'll find there are changes being proposed up and down the country!

I went to a meeting the other day at an autism drop in centre, there was a government official there telling us they need to make savings of £300,000 in this county, guess where they're planning on making the cuts ... that's right from the most vulnerable people in our society, yup disabled children!. They want to charge parents of sn children of pre and post school age to use transport to and from school £240 per year, they want to cut all transport to all sn children between the ages of 5 and 11 to special schools completely, if they live within 2 miles from the school they attend, and within 3 miles of a child aged between 11 and 16. They are also going to try and cut the transport for children that live in residential units and need it to go home at weekends etc. I find this is absolutely disgusting what they're doing, or planning to do, and I also find it is discriminating against disabled children. Also this is being planned all across the country and Oxford have already accepted these proposals!. The government are truly fucking us over!!

swc the issue is one of redistribution of funding and lack of accountability. There's nothing between 'free' schools or Academies from governors to Sec. of State. Money is taken from locasl schools to fund them, to the obvious detriment of LEA schools. There may well be probs with LEA SN provision, but this fragmentation doesn't solve them. Maybe more parental involvement in LEA's might?

@hedley

I can! They have promised that when "call me Dave" is ousted as leader his forehead will be used to generate electricity as part of the world's largest solar array. Should put the output by at least 5%.

Osborne has offered his services as a target in the archery in next year's Olympics. This will save at least £50.

Who says the Tories don't care?

Although it's not something I know about first hand, I'm prepared to accept that SN provision may well need re-thinking or change.

In respect of the other point, it's the 'if they're bad schools' that's the rub. If parents dislike a school because of its intake, and they set up another, then the other school suffers as a direct result of that. Especially if, as in Bristol, they buy land in one postcode because it's cheaper, but don't let any of the children within that postcode in, because they're only interested in providing for their own children and the children of their friends.

It's probably on iPlayer or whatever, the programme I'm thinking of. I wasn't sure before whether I was letting my ideological bias inform my fears about free schools, but the exact way this one in Bristol has panned out does seem to flag up the kinds of issues I would have expected and been suspicious of.

The aims and objectives of the Jigsaw School are laudable, but I don't think the free school idea is the right one, or that it is the way to go across the board. Whilst I get the frustrations of those who know at first hand that something should be done about SN provision, the majority of Free Schools are middle class parents trying to keep their children away from the schools in the areas they've chosen to live in, and the results are potentially toxic.

Although I have enjoyed not seeing a single advert about the dangers of smoking to make me feel bad since the Tories won. That's been nice.

Thanks, Dave!

Listening to the programme about free schools in Bristol on Radio 4 last Sauturday confirmed all my worst fears about them. Free schools are going to be very bad news. No-one could argue with the principle of provision for SN, but free schools just hand the power to fools with wrong agendas, and they aren't going to work out well, in my opinion.

I can't think of anything of any worth. All I know that is going to change is that I will lose my CB and dd's school is an academy, and nothing has changed at it.

'Do you have advanced details of the Universal Credit and how it will be calculated?'

Yes. All benefit levels will be reduced or it wouldn't be happening.

'ending child detention of asylum seekers'

Any proof that this had been done? All evidence shows that children are still in detentions centres. This was a great thing to say they were going to do, but they HAVEN'T done it.

The scrapping of ID cards, the repealing of many laws that restricted civil liberties, ending child detention of asylum seekers to name a few non economic benefits.

Capping housing benefit so unscrupulous landlords don't take councils for a ride and unemployed people can't end up in mansions.

Do you have advanced details of the Universal Credit and how it will be calculated? I haven't seen anything announced yet...

No, it will come in with Universal Credit in2013. So we've got 2 years to agitate, educate, organise. [coalitionofresistance.org.uk], [anticutsprotests.co.uk], UKuncut, etc

So it hasn't actually happened yet?

Those figures are from The Children's Society, haven't looked on their website. I guess it's the kind of anomaly you get if you abolish bureaucracy and introduce the universal payment?