captaink77.bsky.social
Mostly SEND, mostly for @spcialndsjungle.bsky.social
151 posts
478 followers
210 following
Regular Contributor
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The ‘don’t keep that data, sorry’ response is a familiar one: local authority management information systems vary, but tend towards dogshit. When I’ve put similar requests in, the refusal has usually been ‘DfE don’t ask for it, so we don’t collate it’
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That means one of us must be David Dickinson
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I don't know, but the ever-optimistic DfE is betting on 'misinformed'
They're looking at spending £5.7m on training council members and leaders to fulfil their statutory SEND roles: I don't envy the trainers
www.find-tender.service.gov.uk/Notice/03799...
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I think you could blame parents if they wanted the best, knew the law didn't offer that, but wasted public funds on pointless tribunals anyway
But that's not what's happening, and the CCN lead for SEND should surely know that
So back we go: misinformed, incompetent, or plain lying to our faces?
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(And whilst we're here, the councillor's own local authority has run a surplus on its Dedicated Schools Grant throughout the SEND crisis, and is set to still run a cumulative surplus at the end of this financial year)
bsky.app/profile/john...
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..but the councillor gives it a similar go. This is a current local govt comms line: everyone's acting rationally, no-one's at fault, the system's wrong
A line that implies it's 'rational', not maladministration, for public officials to commit serial unlawful acts bsky.app/profile/john...
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(Fair play to @helenhayes.bsky.social here, who tries to stop the councillor getting totally high on her own supply)
bsky.app/profile/john...
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As evidenced by this follow-up: a complete misreading of parental motivation, an utter misinterpretation of how SEND Tribunal panels make decisions
No parent stopping their chemo, draining their savings, or leaving their job to mount a SEND appeal is 'getting a better deal' bsky.app/profile/john...
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The evidence for this is readily available - to any councillor - in the form of many thousands of SENDIST decision notices sent to members of the County Councils Network every year
It's painfully obvious sometimes that no-one in positions of decision-making power reads these, or learns from them
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Foale might have a point if parents were dragging councils to tribunal needlessly, with council decisions upheld at 98% of hearings
She might have a point if the law contained no provision for councils to refuse 'the best' on grounds of efficient use of resources
But the reverse is true, x2
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After a few years in the SEND system, you frequently end up in meetings silently playing a game of 'are they misinformed, incompetent, or plain lying to your face?'
Exhibit A: the system's test is suitability of education to meet need, not whether it's the best available
bsky.app/profile/john...
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Given how much of the SEND crisis is driven by issues with financing & supplying education provision from the health sector, that's a bizarre omission
Both LA reps from the broke & low-wattage end of the sector: would have been sensible to have heard directly from the ~30% of LAs with a surplus too
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Cerebra made this point in its response to the Law Commission consult, among many others, including the self-reported large number of errors the LGSCO makes when dealing with complaints. See answer to q62 here for the full skinny cerebra.org.uk/legal-rights...
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Yeah, that’s the line from the top, and it’s here to stay
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The LGSCO remedy payments are almost always far smaller than the cost that the LA would have incurred if they had delivered the provision in the first place
There's no other accountability pressure: Ofsted & CQC's area SEND inspections have never remarked on LGSCO complaints, & probably never will
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It might be tempting to see these complaints as compo-driven: they're not. Compensation is often a three-figure sum, & most complainants just want an apology & better practice
The LGSCO remedy tariff for a missing term of education lowballs at £900 www.lgo.org.uk/information-...
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Like everything else that the SEND system touches, the Ombudsman is now swamped, and it's been trying to manage demand for SEND complaints
At the same time, LGSCO wants to extend its remit beyond the school gate, something which will be as popular with the sector as airborne gonorrhoea
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The number of SEND complaints that the LGSCO is refusing to look at because parents could have appealed to the SEND Tribunal has also increased sharply - probably several hundred such cases in 2024
But many parents don't have the resources to mount a SEND Tribunal appeal
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Outcomes from LGSCO complaints mirror those at the SEND First Tier Tribunal, whose hearings amend 98% of local govt decisions
Case law means there's no overlap between SEND casework examined at LGSCO and SEND casework examined at Tribunal
Just one common denominator: awful LA decision-making
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The LGSCO is normally the last resort. Families usually have to exhaust local complaints processes before turning to the Ombudsman - & their complaint investigations aren't quick either
Most of the cases in Chaminda's article revolve around fuckery that happened in 2022 or 2023, sometimes earlier
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Reports like the one that birthed this concept normally cost somewhere in the mid-ten thousands
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It seems like the types of SEN that are most amenable to cost reduction via early intervention are exactly those types of SEN that need timely input from NHS specialists, which is partly why we are where we are I guess
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Yes: if it’s not possible to smash the DSG block system, then detach and delegate a chunk of the HNB, combined with much greater external visibility of how that chunk is deployed at m/s school level
But a lot would depend on what human resources the NHS can spare, & how schools can tap them
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This is clearly a consultant-driven concept: it's just a repackaged version of a delegated mainstream SEN funding model that a) already exists, and b) already fails
The concept promises flexibility, but its aim is to push financial and operational risk downwards, away from LAs
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The 'cohort-based' approach would detach funding and specific provision from individual children with SEND. The school would be given an arbitrary lump of £ (based on a Kabbalistic formula) to use as they see fit. Accountability would be in the form of an annual report to school governors
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What the shitting blazes is a 'cohort-based' EHCP, you're probably asking. Unless you're Mr Charters, I suspect
'Cohort-based' EHCPs don't exist: it's a glorified yes-and-ho PowerPoint bullet masquerading as a funding concept, being pushed by local government lobbyists without any real detail
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Oh, well done ❤️
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There isn’t any reliable data here, either on numbers or reasons
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SEND didn’t feature particularly heavily in the DfE’s recent list of incubated AI projects
Some firms are marketing AI tools to LAs to draft EHCPs, which has potential to be a Caligula-grade goatfuck
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People much more clued up than me in this area (eg @tstarkey1212.bsky.social ) will know how effective mandatory training might be here, but I suspect it’ll all depend on the depth / breadth / recency trade-offs, and how you get the awkward squad to adopt