SEN funding isn't a bottomless money pit

[Sogfree]

I'll preface this by saying I really enjoy my job working in a SEN school. I care deeply for the children and families I work with.

I've had 4 different conversations this week with parents where they expect an excessive amount of additional resource to be allocated to their child. They expect this as, in their opinion, it's needed. I disagree with 3 of the 4 parents that this is needed.

All 4 of the parents are going to fight the decisions county have made. Their decision to fight will mean county spend more money arguing the challenge.

Services are already broken with the increase in need. Recruitment fails, as there aren't enough speech therapists/OTs/CAMHS practitioners etc to employ.

One parent demanding extra from one of these services means another child gets less.

One parent demanding a child goes to school X at £100k per year when a place at school Y at £30k is going to meet their needs means the child who needs the place at school X doesn't get it, and extra £70k per year is wasted. And the parent keeps their child out of school for 12-18 months whilst they fight for the place at school X.

That's the reality.

Every parent wants the world for their child. I understand that. But taxpayers can't afford to give every child the world.

AIBU - parents know their child best and we should fund what the parents say the child needs

YANBU - there's only so much money to go around and parents need to accept hard decisions have to be made without challenging them

What's that got to do with the price of fish?

No, you cannot take away a child's necessary and legally mandated provision for any reason. Fight for the children who are still being failed, absolutely, but not by stealing from other disabled children.

Parents know their SEN children the best. I had to fight at tribunal for my son to go to a special school and the provisions he needs. I said to the LA that I am happy for them to find him one of their special schools and made that clear throughout our wait for the hearing. I found a fantastic private special school which costs considerably more than a maintained special school but it was for his specific disability so named that school, the LA didn’t make the effort to even consult with their own special schools and insisted mainstream could meet his needs even with them saying they couldn’t. We obviously won our hearing and the judge was not happy that they didn’t even look for a suitable school and mentioned if they had they would have won due to costs.That is not my fault, I am doing what is best for my child.

I saw you mentioned on a previous comment that you know parents who have won 100k schools over 30k schools both saying they can meet needs. I know from experience that they would have won the 100k school due to that school offering provision in section F of the EHCO over the 30k school that doesn’t offer that provision, that is just one example of why they have won that school. If both schools offered the same provision they would have lost due to costs. Can I ask have you ever been to a SEN tribunal? Or are you just judging by what parents have told you?

Honestly, you are determined to deny the facts and logic and just insist that every individual working for the LA is incompetent and corrupt.

Out of interest, you mentioned doing a tribunal. Are you by chance an advocate charging for their services?

You could apply that to any concept.
Ultimately if there is only a finite budget then unfortunately even necessities have to be cut

(I meant we've already got dangerously unsafe roads round here, for starters)

So you think 1% is reasonable? I don't.

I don't know about other LAs, mine seems to lose a lot of time with their panel systems.

You are judgemental towards parents not taking up holiday activities for their SEND DC, yet object to me using the word unlawful, when LAs are acting unlawfully?!?

SEN funding isn't a zero sum game. The SEN funds come from central government. The central government's funds come from tax and borrowing. The money is raised to pay for the budgets. Budgets change according to what is required (we don't have bank failures or pandemics every year thank the stars).

I mean there are certainly funding issues but it's not like eating a packet of Maltesers.

Because many are. As evidenced by SARs.

Quite apart from people being allowed to have as many children as they think they can support, not all SEND are visible at birth anyway.

A lot of the Autism/ADHD diagnoses occur after the child turns 3 (sometimes closer to 7, or even when they go to secondary and 'the wheels fall off'), by which time a second or even third baby might be on the way or already arrived.

The cost of adult social care will increase substantially if children's legal rights to education are cut.

"Finite" means something that can be used up. If the SEN funding is used up before reasonably required provision is paid for, the system's badly designed (especially when you consider how much is being paid by parents in time and money).

Education would be better viewed as investment anyway.

There is NOT money for more and more children to have a bespoke private education. My child has an EHCP with multiple diagnoses and difficulties. We have worked with the schools and what has been on offer. It’s been bloody tough for her but she has pushed through and utilised what has been on offer. I could have said no it’s a private school I have picked or nothing and produced a shopping list of expensive therapies but we didn’t. How would that have helped her and the many other kids with SEN and parents not strong enough or educated enough to battle the system? What if we all decided to say it’s an expensive private option or nothing? The money needs to go into MS which needs to be developed and widened.

You are totally right! And explained it much better than I did in my comment.

just seems like another bash at SEN parents. It is relentless. Having DC with additional needs is so hard already, the judgement and ill informed opinions are just another layer to add to the shitheap.

The "everyone should be in mainstream" policy is costing huge amounts compared to allowing EOTAS with lower personal budgets (which tbf almost always come with an invisible extra cost not paid by the LA of a parent giving up work to facilitate them, despite the law being that the parent should not be obliged to do so). It also fits a lot of children less well.

I work in the sector and seems to be those with the most severe SEN that try and make MS work. It also seems to be the most severe from the neediest families that don’t get the places in the best special schools most suited to them. It’s not right and something needs to be done.

You clearly don't 'work in the sector' if you think that.

You are also denying many facts and at no point have I said everyone working for an LA is incompetent and corrupt. You did state you think tribunals favour parents though which would indeed be corrupt, which seems a bit weird as you're basically saying LAs aren't incompetent and corrupt but the SEND tribunal, a court, are.

No I'm not a send advocate. I'm a parent of send CYP. I've done 9 tribunals (won 7, had two conceded by the LA) and have had 14 upheld decisions from the Local Government and Social Care Ombudsman finding my LA at fault because they continually act unlawfully or as my latest decision said, 'fetter their discretion'

But sure, LA's aren't incompetent or corrupt at all 😂

Oh for goodness sake, that's a ridiculous comment just because she doesn't agree with you.
I have 3 SEND kids, work in the sector and this the whole system is mess
Advocates making money from vulnerable parents
Sharp elbowed parents saving themselves the costs of extra curriculars by getting private therapists to class it all as educational provision.
Private business charging extrontionate fees to run independent SEN schools
Mainstreams cherry picking their pupils.

That fact that someone disagrees with you does not mean they are lying about their job.

I noticed you dodged the question about whether you are an advocate profiting from parents going to tribunal?

Sorry I missed that reply. How many children do you have? Is it just your children you are going to tribunal for?

Adults involved in education could do with being a little more “emotionally invested” in meeting their duty of care to children.

This is not about “what I want”. It’s about schools and Local Authorities failing to meet their minimum legal requirements to provide a baseline level of adequate education for all children, deliberately breaking the law in order to do so as a matter of policy, as evidenced by the tribunal data.

It is you that is completely wrong.

The funding problems don’t mean that disabled children should have their legal rights breached or that parents are unreasonable for enforcing them. The funding problems show that the funding is insufficient to provide even the woeful level of education that the state system is legally required to provide as an absolute minimum, therefore funding needs to be increased, very significantly, and the whole system redesigned and funded properly. Blaming parents and children simply shows that you’re incapable of rational analysis of the situation or envisaging appropriate solutions, like I outlined in my earlier posts.

Meanwhile, a proper regulator needs putting in place like in law, finance, medicine and every other sector that will weed out people like you and ensure they are removed from their jobs (and pension schemes), have their professional qualifications removed, and are barred from working in any capacity involving a duty of care to vulnerable minors ever again. Names published, public disgrace, personal fines and - in cases of repeated and deliberate breaches of statutory requirements and law - prison sentences. Plus, of course, organisational fines for Local Authorities of sufficient magnitude to negate any financial benefit that they currently obtain by behaving in this reprehensible and illegal manner.

AHH yes, there are soooo many children with profound disabilities in mainstream education making the most of it! 🙄 That is the one group that at least (mostly) don't have to fight to get specialist agreed as there is no debating a mainstream can meet need.

Whether they are actually able to get a school named, or at least a suitable school named is a whole different battle...

It doesn't work like that though, if there's excess send funds they won't get put into mainstream schooling. You not asking for more support for your child doesn't mean another child will get something as opposed to nothing. They just both manage without.

if more early intervention was in place the need for expensive provision would lessen imo so I do agree mainstream needs more funding. I think that is what we need to focus on as in turn it would reduce the spend on send and improve education for ALL our children.

The whole system is a mess. There is definitely people making money from the vulnerable. I did have experience of a private provider I accused of fraud to the LA I was so cross with what they did with funds.

I still don't think the main issue is parent expectations or being able to challenge decisions.

The system also needs to change with less going into the private sector.