To wonder how a £36k a year education can meet DS’s needs if a £250k one can’t?

[GoneBatty]

Private residential SEND college (out of area) costs £250k a year. They are saying DS’s needs are too high for them to manage.

Council are saying a £36k a year local outreach provision can meet his needs.

It’s all very fishy as SEND college at first said they felt they could meet DS’s needs so we visited, all was OK. As as soon as the council (who will have to fund it) got involved, college backtracked and said they couldn’t meet his needs.

They have given nonsensical reasons which I have mitigated numerous times. Both the college and council have told blatant lies and I’ve caught them out in two big ones!

Now we have reached Tribunal the college is suddenly full which was not an issue a few months ago so know they’re lying again as they would know numbers of students months in advance due to Tribunals and the time it take to get funding. Also most Tribunals due to take place over the summer were postponed for this age group.

AIBU to suspect the council has given the college a backhander to say they can’t meet his needs? It would cost council £750k for a 3 year program. They could have given a £100k ‘investment’ per se? Still saves a lot of money!

There is literally no other provision like this in the country. I have approached 21 other colleges, local and out of area. DS has had no proper provision for over a year and he is running out of time as age 20 - EHCP is to 25.

Do I sound nuts (I feel it)? Can this actually be possible?

Almost certainly your son does qualify for social care. Under the Children Act 1989, all local authorities should carry out a care assessment for children in need, which includes disabled children. If your son's needs are sufficiently severe for him to need a specialist school, he will meet the definition of disability. Don't take no for an answer. Is there social care provision in his EHCP? If not, there should be.

Presumably you also want to ban complex cancer and transplant care and other healthcare which can rack up large bills for effective treatment over a multi year period.

What is the cap you want to put on care/treatment for an individual then? The kind of care which enables someone to return to independent and productive life? The type of care which also saves the cost of a life time of expensive support.

So how come so many people win tribunals without a lawyer?

Not much point paying the college a backhander if you're going to tribunal as they will decide which placement can meet needs and college will have to justify why they can't take him, 'we're full' is an accepted reason.

Have college stated the actual reasons?

Parents won’t win at tribunal by proving an education placement is superior. There is no legal responsibility for the la to provide the best education but there is a legal responsibility for them to provide an adequate education that can meet needs. If a cheaper placement can actually meet needs then that will will. However very often the cheaper placement proposed it is very obvious that it isn’t going to meet needs so that is why so many wins at tribunal

How is that even comparable. One is saving a life. Are you serious? I would rather it goes to funding cancer treatment.

Should the NHS and local councils stop spending vast sums of 'our' money on individual children and adults who have serious accidents, illnesses, need transplants and so on? Or is it just individual people with disabilities who don't deserve vast sums of 'our' money spending on them? According to some pps?

If it is all the government's fault, why do local authority caseworkers and panels so often make unlawful decisions? Why not make the lawful decision and band together to tell the government that they cannot comply with the law and stay within the government's ridiculous funding limits?

It isn't, by any chance, because they think that with any luck they'll get away with breaking the law because parents are too beaten down by the system to appeal, is it?

"Why do you think they are choosing to act unlawfully and choosing to spend vast amounts of money fighting tribunals they know they are going to lose?"

A LA forcing a parent to Tribunal delays them having to fund the provision - by a year at the moment. Tribunal costs are usually less than the provision.

That should say 'we're full' is NOT an accepted reason.

@Worthyornot
Morph22010 · Today 10:46
Cancer treatments are expensive should we be spending that for just one person ?

How is that even comparable. One is saving a life. Are you serious? I would rather it goes to funding cancer treatment.

How is it comparable?
Both give a person what the need in order to live.
Both attempt to support dignity in life.
Both are part of our societal duty to give our people what they need in order to live a decent life.

Both are arguably (I would argue) essential

Really????

So disabled children's lives aren't worth it? It's fine to just stick them in homes like in the 50s with no dignity or voice, rather then try to give them the skills for a decent quality of life?

How is that cancer patients quality of life? How long will they live post treatment? Is 5 years extra for 1 person really better than a lifetime for a disabled child?

There are many who wont be able to access further education. So this person shouldn't have any priority over them..

Heaven forbid that a young person with special educational needs and or disabilities, has support and funding to access something that their NT/non disabled peers can access easily.
Some posters on this thread should really think about what's it's like to be a parent fighting for adequate support for their child or young person. It is soul destroying, it takes up every part of your life. And we do not push for specialist placements for a bit of fun. Tribunals are not a nice day out FFS. It is all consuming and impacts everything. And whilst this is going on a child is often without education.

DS attends an expensive specialist placement. He has no behaviour issues and was previously in mainstream. In fact support earlier in his life could have meant he would have never needed this now.
Our LA agreed and funded it without the need to go to tribunal. The taxi journey to take him there and back costs huge amounts of money too.
Ds has a disability and whilst other young people his age are in their first year of university or have joined the world of work. He is unable to. He is attending a placement that a multitude of professionals from both the LA and NHS, deemed the most appropriate for him. And what local taxpayers with no idea of SEND, think of that, is not our concern.

Parents aren't fighting for 'the best' they are fighting for their child's basic legal right to suitable, education. There is case law stating a child is not entitled to 'a rolls Royce education'. Tribunal will only award what is required, nothing more.

Imagine if most posters had their child out of school for a year because of no school place ( at all) and they had to go to Tribunal to get one. I think they would have a different view of things.

Yup. This.

I had a life changing injury. I'm sure my surgeries cost a fortune. Should I not have had them?

I have a great solution. Councils stop providing education to children without disabilities. It would save them so much money which they could then funnel into special needs provision. We don't provide care to elderly people unless they have high care needs, lets do the same with education.

This thread shows that parents of able children have no problem with education not being universal. So they'll have no issue with their kids not getting it provided by the state.

he had social care assessment but we didn’t qualify for anything as we only have one child and also he is accessing activities in the community ie. I take him to a couple of sports clubs weekly. I’ve not bothered fighting as to be honest we’d only prob get a couple of hours direct payment per week and have to find someone to do the work ourselves. Ds can be very hard work so I think we’d struggle to find someone who could manage

People don't believe it until they live it. It is unbelievable. Then you learn...

Quite. The disability discrimination and disablism from some pps on this thread is shameful.

Exactly. And some parents will give up because for whatever reason they don’t feel they can continue to advocate for their DC or they don’t know they can force the LA to fund the necessary provision.

I strongly suspect that there are some fairly cold-blooded decisions being made that it is worth making unlawful decisions because they will get away with it. Some caseworkers and local authority panels calculate that a lot of parents of children with SEND either don't know that what is happening is unlawful, or don't know there is a remedy, or know it but are too beaten down by having to look after their inadequately provided-for children to access the remedy. Equally they decide to fight tribunals because they hope to intimidate some parents into giving up, because they may get away with at least some of their unlawful decisions, and at the very least because it buys time.

I bet loads of parents give up and don't go to tribunal.

For me with pip, if I hadn't got a mandatory reconsideration, I don't think I'd have had the mental strength to go to tribunal. I'd imagine education provision is similar.

I agree with @LaGioconda, DS will qualify. If you ever appeal the education part of the EHCP you can ask for the social care provision to be looked at as well.