£9m more for LAs (SEN reforms)

[StarlightMcKenzie]

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What is absolutely bonkers is that Richmond is the one LA named as having made good progress and they weren't a pathfinder, nor did they receive any money.

So WTF is the money for?

And WTF haven't the ones WITH the money done as well as Richmond?

It's so that the LAs with more money can have paid-for jollies to Tribunals

Rrrrriiiiight. £9m spread across 400 or so LAs in England. About £22,500 per LA then, to help with a transition they have to make anyway. What's that supposed to accomplish, other than lining the pockets of "best practice" education snake oil consultants and conference organisers?

Easy to dismiss as gesture politics. But then you think about what you could use that £9m for, and the red mist descends....

Post on it. I have.

It's a paltry sum but how does this money help kids? How does it improve outcomes?

More breakfast meetings? More networking?

What really annoys me is I can't work out what LAs are actually spending ANY of the piloting money on. They're clearly not letting people have SEN DPs and most of the stuff that is going on could have (and should have) been done under existing laws e.g. health and social care DPs, payments for transport, talking to parents....FFS

It's all a complete nightmare.

So another FOI request asking for break down of how it has been spent (you'd think the gov would be asking this but I bet they're not).

One way might be to ask what the main budget code was called for this, and then ask for a print off per month for this code for each of the LAs.

If you do it another way they might be able to chose what they disclose.

OK I have list of pilot authorities - PM me if you are up for it. Star do you want to draft FOIA request?

Please can you supply the following information:

ii) The total amount of funding the LA has received to pilot the children and families SEN pathfinder and which agencies have provided this money.

iii) A list of all of the internal budgetary codes used for this funding.

iiii) A list of every transaction against each of these codes since the funding was received.

iv) The amount left in the overall budget as of the end of June 2013.

Howsat?

Great.Shall we coordinate LAs so we don't duplicate? Should we do off board? I know we are being watched on here.

Yes

The more watchers the merrier! I second the offer of a and would suggest that they reveal themselves so we know who they are.

After all, no-one has anything to hide, do they?

I've logged several tonight. Can do more if needed.

Will send some more over!