New £6k funding rules for 2013-2014

[rosielou678]

Please can someone help me with understanding the new government funding rules for Statemented children in mainstream settings

I understand that the first £6k has to come out of school's money. (I think!). If my child has a Statement but the school has to buy-in, say, £5k of external provision, does that mean that the cost of his place is £5k plus £6k. Or does it mean its £6k minus £5k and the excess £1k is not needed?

Hope this is clear! But i need to know what this actually means!

[rosielou678]

Sadly this isn't about places already funded and available. This is about an LA who is hell bent on getting my son into their named school at any cost (financial, emotional and legal).

But perhaps you are right, ultimately maybe the provision currently on offer doesn't meet the needs. Just maybe the LA is trying to change the current provision to meet needs, but are doing so at my son's cost? They are making it up as they go along. We don't have any dyslexia teachers... Oh we do have teachers with dyslexia experience - funny enough the head has just been on a LA dyslexia course. We don't have any pupils with severe dyslexia... Oh we do have pupils with the same profile as your son.

More examples. You child has to go in a shared taxi with escort. Oh no, we got that wrong, you child has to go in his own taxi without escort. It takes 45 minutes to get to school... Oh no it doesn't, it takes 31 minutes.

Honestly I couldn't make this up if I tried!

[beautifulgirls]

Take a look here as the threads linked to in this thread may be helpful to explain things? www.mumsnet.com/Talk/special_needs/1689797-funding-calculations-from-LA-advice-please

[rosielou678]

beautifulgirls and AgnesDiPesto - Thank you thank you thank you....

beautifulgirls - so did your Tribunal accept the figure of £10k for your DC's placement?

[inappropriatelyemployed]

This is a really helpful thread. Does that mean that any SS is going to cost at least 10k? What about an ASD base?

How do you know if there are additional costs to this? For example, if they have SLT onsite will that be covered in the 10k.

How do you calculate mainstream? Presumably it will depend on the amount of hours.

If a child has a statement with 30 hours a week support and half termly visits of OT and SLT. How is this calculated?

[rosielou678]

IE - in my DS's case, they are trying to put him in mainstream with a SLT unit. My guess is that DS's SLT will be included within the £10k because it's already there. I think I'd find it very hard to fight that one but maybe my barrister will tell me otherwise. Just maybe there's a chance that I might get it outside the £10k because the FOI shows that a SLT hasn't been on site weekly, although the school says s/he has been.

[inappropriatelyemployed]

Thanks - how do you cost a mainstream placement? Do you know?

[beautifulgirls]

In our tribunal the cost calculations didn't come into it in the end as the panel decided that she wasn't coping in mainstream so we won on that basis. Therefore I don't know which argument they would have accepted.

The LA argued that the total costs to them were only £2.5k in her mainstream school with full time 1:1 and weekly SALT/OT !!! We put figures in for the first £4K which every pupil with or without SEN costs (approx) to the LA and then calculated all of the extra costs on top for the 1:1 support we wanted if she had to stay mainstream, plus SALT/OT costs. Clearly the first 6K of that extra would have to come from school funds if she had stayed put and then LA top up from there, but to be honest how they allocate the money wasn't such an issue, we just wanted to show all the costs of her education. The initial 4K is a pupil based payment rather than a place led payment and our legal advocate (FS) believed it should be included in the calculations. Hope that makes some sense.

[rosielou678]

Thanks beautifulgirls. I think I'm going to be in for a fight at Tribunal with them using the correct figures.

[gimmeanaxe]

What does it mean in English? I'm going to be attempting to get a mainstream secondary place for dd despite her incredibly high needs - she needs one to one, every therapy going, specialised seating, communication device etc - by pointing out that shipping her 80 miles to the only school that could take her through GCSE's would cost far more than this mainstream place.

[rosielou678]

Its means that LAs are currently making it up as they go along - despite direction from the government that they should all be following the same rules.

[lougle]

I think beautifulgirls has raised a very valid point. The cost of provision is just that. What it costs for child x to have their needs met as defined in the statement. How that cost is spread between the LA's central funding and the school's allocated funding is irrelevant - it all came from the LA in the first place.

2 examples:

Schools are given £4000 per pupil. Child x also has a statement costing £2k. Total cost to the LA? Well....could they say £2k? No. Of course not. The LA gave the school the original £4k.

Schools are given no money at all. Child x has a statement costing £2k and a school place costing £4k. Total cost £6k.

It doesn't matter how the money is routed, it started from the LA.

[rosielou678]

No it doesn't matter where it comes from but when you trying to sum up the cost of a maintained school versus an indie school, to have an LA claiming that an enhanced provision costs £575 per year, it is important to say, no that's not right, the cost is actual £x. And that £x is a level playing field.

[lougle]

That's exactly what I'm saying, rosielou . You need to be able to say 'no, the cost is how much the provisions cost, regardless of the 'cost centre' because they originate from the LA'.

[rosielou678]

I think we're saying the same thing But I am not used to this game playing of costs that the LA seem to think its ok to do. In my naviety, I am thinking that the LA is playing by the book. When, of course, the reality is that they're not.

[KOKOagainandagain]

DH wrote a spreadsheet for LA costs - 1:1, SALT, OT, taxi. PM your email if you would like a copy.

Rosie - FS was our advocate recently but the LA conceded before we got to costs. Our figures would have been about 20K more than they had submitted. According to FS the cost difference has to be less than around 5K.

At this stage you want m/s to cost more. That way even if their named school can meet needs the cost of parental preference is not 'unreasonable expenditure'.

[rosielou678]

Thanks keepon. I submitted a schedule of costs, and now so has the LA.

The maddening thing is that if you took the LA's table of costs as-is, the difference between indie and theirs is precisely £6,680.

But they have used the figures of £575 for the cost in their placement. So you can see why it is so important that they use the correct figure of £10k. With the correct government imposed figures, their provision is more expensive.

This is even without me fighting their extremely low levels of certain bought-in help and them totally ignoring other recommendations from my experts. Then there's the question of does my Dc need an escort in the taxi. On one set of figures, the LA said yes, but now they are saying no. But the journey is very long, down a busy motorway in rush hour with a child with ADHD. So for safety reasons, common sense tells me he needs an escort. But then common sense has not played any part in my DS's case. Can a taxi driver also be a safe escort?

I doubt the LA will concede. They have a reputation for not. And the way they have treated myself and my DS (of course, all in my son's best interests) over the last 18 months has been appalling.

[KOKOagainandagain]

My LA miscalculated the transport by a factor of five. We had the 'correct' figures plus calculations for various scenarios using official goverment figures of salary plus on costs for various bands of 1:1.

I know it sounds weird but what you actually want is for the submitted figures to be 'wrong' as the person representing at tribunal is extremely unlikely to be able to challenge alternative costings. Most people don't do figures.

[chocnomore]

rosie, not sure this is useful but there was this thread about funding last year. maybe worth a read?
www.mumsnet.com/Talk/special_needs/a1563371-Funding-for-SEN-in-MS-from-April-2013

[rosielou678]

Thanks choc

Keepon - when you say you had alternative costings... Was that during the Tribunal or submitted by you before evidence deadline?

[KOKOagainandagain]

The costs submitted for final evidence deadline were relating to parental choice of school. The LA costs were not available to me until the final deadline. The alternative costings were submitted as late evidence on the day of the hearing. PM me and I will send them to you.

I also arranged for Ruth Birnbaum to visit the LA named school and produce a report which was also submitted as late evidence on the day of the hearing.

[rosielou678]

Thanks keepon

[inappropriatelyemployed]

How do you find what pay grade your LSA is on or do you just take it on the basis of what the LA will pay for an LSA?

[mymatemax]

It is so so sad that these threads are needed. I refuse to discuss funding with my childs school.
Placement should be about NEED not £££.

Why oh why are the tribunals entertaining discussion regarding funding it should be about NEED.. gggrrrrrrrrr!!

[KOKOagainandagain]

LA will try to get away with bog-standard level B. However level D should be the standard for DC with SEN. Produce costs for multiple levels.

I guess that you want to know the costs (potentially available for direct payment for tutors) of statemented 1:1 given that DS is not in school?