Parents of children with special educational needs and disabilities (SEND), including me, are going to “bankrupt” councils across the country. Spending on home-to-school transport is on course to cost £2bn a year – and, according to Reform UK’s deputy leader, Richard Tice, it’s partly because parents are too lazy to drop off their own kids, and are “using and abusing” the system. Rest assured, his party is going to be “digging into” the problem.
As someone who’s been mired in this world for much of the past decade – my child has autism and associated mental health issues – this isn’t the first time such claims have been made.
In fact, parents of SEND kids are well accustomed to the mud-slinging. But I have one thing to say to Tice and the like: we’ve never asked for complimentary cabs. What we actually want is meaningful government support.
As a family, our requests are relatively modest and simple – as much as anything is simple when dealing with disability – and they have been from the get-go. We had a very clear diagnosis of autism (which, contrary to popular belief, is far from easy to secure), and we also had the full support of the school (which is quite rare, believe me). Our local council, nonetheless, threw everything our way to make it as difficult as possible.
We spent a lot of money fighting a council that digs its heels in every step of the way. My wife even had to go part time, because securing the help for a child with special educational needs is a job in itself. We also utilised my skills as a journalist, which came in handy because you have to pen innumerable letters. We even drafted in Wes Streeting, our local MP, while he was a shadow cabinet member.
And yet, despite this seemingly powerful combination, the council wouldn’t budge, and we ended up having a “mediation” session with a third-party to try and help us come to a positive outcome.
Needless to say, the mediation ended in us being advised to submit our application for an education, health and care (EHC) plan – again. It took three attempts at this before we worked out that this was simply a delay tactic, and finally approached the SEND tribunal. It was only then that things started to move, albeit at a glacial pace.
It came as no surprise to us that Ofsted recently strafed the council’s “ineffective systems, long waits for therapies, delays in EHCPs, poor communication, and outdated assessment methods”. We’d seen it all up close and personal, and we knew all too well how difficult it is to get a local authority to do its job.
This is what people encounter when looking for the bare minimum of support for a SEND child, who will often have to be educated in special schools far from where they live, and will be less able to travel on public transport by themselves. So I shudder to think of what it takes to get school transport, too – or “free taxis”, as Reform would have it.
Tice claimed parents were “abusing the system”, singing from a similar hymn sheet to the one favoured by the Local Government Association (LGA). But take it from someone who actually knows what they’re talking about here: you don’t embark on this journey unless you absolutely have to. It’s exhausting, debilitating, heartbreaking. It damages your mental and physical health. It damages your child in the process. It is a nightmarish hellscape.
Yet, politicians like Tice, organisations like the LGA, and well-remunerated middle-class council officials persist in blaming parents for failures that are theirs. If you want to know why this situation has arisen, I can give you the answer: it’s because of a dire shortage of school provision for SEND kids. If there were more schools offering suitable provision, they would, by extension, be closer to where the children actually live – and require less of a journey to get there.
I support teaching children in mainstream schools where appropriate, but we also need to be honest. There are some for whom it doesn’t work – for whom it is never going to work. They need schools set up to deal with their issues. Schools which aren’t available in many localities, hence the need for those taxis.
You want to end their use? Stop sounding off like an angry caller on a radio phone-in and get to work creating new school places. The fact that successive administrations haven’t done that is simply shameful. So is the fact that the current one doesn’t appear minded to grasp the nettle.
Needless to say, I find it hard to imagine Tice and his pals doing much better.
Trust me, splitting up refugee families is not the answer to the migrant crisis
I’m a secondary school teacher: We need more Send provision, not less
Failings in mental health care demand quicker and more decisive action
The overlooked qualification that could solve the UK’s skills gap
As a former Green Party leader, here’s what Zack should do next
