Labour’s Chris Vince says Tories should be ashamed over “covert deal to cut help for pupils with special needs”
News / Mon 11th Sep 2023 at 03:47pm
THE Labour parliamentary candidate for Harlow said the Conservative government should be ashamed after an article in The Guardian claimed that there is a “covert deal to cut help for pupils in England with special needs”.
Chris Vince said: “At a time when crumbling Schools are making headlines of which the government should be ashamed, yet another disastrous cut to Special Educational Needs and Disability (SEND) provision is being proposed.
The Department for Education (DfE) has tried to sneak it in under the radar, maybe trying to use the crumbling concrete story to hide this disgraceful attack on students with special educational needs.
It has spent £19.5m on consultants to find ways of further reducing the overstretched and under-resourced SEND provision across the country.
“The DfE speaks of impacts and pressures but it’s referring to the costs to DfE not to the impact these moves will have on students and their parents or the pressures already faced by schools trying to deliver a high quality SEND service with rapidly diminishing resources.
The proposed 20% cut will further disadvantage SEND students by forcing them into mainstream education where their needs will be difficult to deliver.
Harlow’s Education Minister MP recently spoke of the need to achieve ‘good outcomes’ for students.
“What impact does he expect slashing the budget of an already under pressure service will have on the likelihood of a good outcome?
David Forman
2023-09-12 08:09:17
Good points from Chris Vince. The increasing SEND costs are the result of Tory cuts in mental health and other agencies actions. The article listed above says: "Recent years have seen rising numbers of new EHCPs (Education, Health and Care Plans) being issued for reasons including failings in the children’s mental health system, non-inclusive approaches adopted by results-driven mainstream schools and improved identification of special needs such as autism." A damning indictment of our government that cuts provision to disadvantaged children who are already underfunded.
Phil
2023-09-12 08:12:25
My nephew is a SEND student, and we struggle already trying to get the help and support he needs. This would be disaster for him, and totally throw him. Just another example of the Tory party slipping further and further down that big black hole. Maybe Mr Halfon in his role, could work hard to put this right. I'm sure the local Tory councillors are going to be quick to leap to his defence as usual, but the truth is we are sinking and cannot carry on like this.
ToriesTheShameOfTheUK
2023-09-12 08:27:12
One of many, many things the Conservative Party should be ashamed of!! But that would imply they have a conscience or are indeed capable of empathy... they are not. They only care about themselves and their rich & posh friends. How they duped and brainwashed the common working class into thinking they cared about them is a mystery... oh wait, they used the red herring of immigration and The big bad EU. Let's all remember, that the enemy arrives by limousine, not by boat.
Guy Flegman
2023-09-12 09:40:23
Back in the 90’s a friend with a child with special needs moved from labour run Harlow to a Conservative controlled town just to get better care for their child. Harlow did not have the specialist care required for the child’s condition. The cold reality is care for different conditions varies wildly across the country and is generally more effected by the people running the care sector and lobby groups than the politicians in local areas. Big take away is that in general specialist care for young people in the UK has never been very good regardless of which party is in power.
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