Oct 28, 2024, Special Needs Jungle: “Lack of stigma” blamed for rising SEND? We will NEVER be ashamed of our disabled children
In a surprise to absolutely no one, the recent National Audit Office report into the “value for money” of the SEND system has exacerbated negative attitudes towards disabled children and their parents. This isn’t a new take—earlier this year, I wrote about the appalling comments of councillors in Warwickshire among others—and it’s certainly not an informed one.
The narrative goes like this: SEND services are too expensive. Too many kids are getting too much. Most of them don’t need it anyway. Things were much better when nobody wanted to admit they had a disabled child. Now parents can blame their poor parenting on neurodivergence, and force schools and local authorities to spend a fortune on their useless offspring. Never mind that this isn’t close to reality - the underlying tone is: what are we spending money on them for anyway? What a waste.
Shame and stigma can get in the sea
Over the weekend, my Twitter/X feed was filled with angry reactions to a Times article, with the not-at-all sensationalist title “Special needs bills are bankrupting councils”. In an outrageous “opinion” piece, heartless columnist, Emma Duncan, bemoans our apparent “lack of shame” as parents:
“The shame that went with being “statemented” in the past has dissipated, and “neurodiversity” has become an identity rather than a stigma. For parents, such a diagnosis can be both a relief, for it implies that difficult behaviour is innate rather than the consequence of poor parenting, and a help”.
Emma Duncan, The Times
You read that right: years of fighting for a diagnosis and then for the right support for your child, is easier than “just” parenting them properly. According to this article and others like it, our “poor parenting” is set to bankrupt every council, and by extension, the country.
Remember the recent council-funded report calling disabled children an “existential threat” to local authority finances? It seems some have swallowed that biased narrative and are running with it. You could have a read of it yourself, if you’re inclined to give The Times money to read their ableist, uninformed drivel. Or you can read an unpaywalled version here, if you must.
The law is “too generous”
According to Ms. Duncan, the problem is that the Children and Families Act 2014 is “too generous” and parents can “exploit the system” to get costly help that’s not needed simply by asking for it. Exacerbating this is our desperation to blame medical conditions rather than acknowledge our useless parenting. Schools are—apparently—incentivised to apply for an EHC Needs assessment because they’ll either get a load of cash or they can shift these naughty, poorly-parented kids out into specialist schools.
I don’t know what, if any, experience the delightful Ms Duncan has of the SEND system, but it’s not remotely reflective of the reality for millions of children and parents in England. This cruel, right-wing narrative belies a fundamental misunderstanding of the state of the SEND system, with myths repeated so often they become the accepted truth. This article is an excellent case study of the complete misrepresentation of the issue - let’s address these myths one at a time.
Myth 1: EHCP numbers are being “driven up” by a “change in the law and in the culture surrounding special needs”
Yes, a change in law in 2014 gave disabled children and young people more rights. It gave them the right to the support they need, not just in education but in health and social care, until the age of 25. The previous system wasn’t working, and the failure to support disabled children had awful consequences, socially and economically.
Since then, the law has remained unchanged, so how could it be responsible for increasing numbers of plans now? There’s a very obvious reason why the number of children reaching the threshold for a statutory plan is increasing: a decade of underfunding particularly of non-statutory support, lengthy delays in meeting needs, and the complete failure of the previous government to invest in the infrastructure needed. Ms. Duncan goes on to mention all of these things herself, even citing the failure to properly fund the change in law, but still feels the need to throw around some unwarranted blame.
Myth 2. “Parents can ask for their child to have an EHCP”
No we can’t. We can request an EHC needs assessment. The local authority is only required to carry one out if certain legal tests are met: essentially, the child may have SEND, and they may need provision that would require an Education, Health and Care Plan. This threshold is frequently ignored. Many children who meet the criteria are (unlawfully) refused an assessment, and parents (or at least those who have the capacity to do so), then need to appeal the refusal. This can take many months, meaning more delays for the child. Parental requests are more likely.
SEND Transport costs driven by ‘increased parental expectations’ claims councils’ group, and “something has to give”. Disabled children’s safety, perhaps? to be refused than requests from a school, with some local authorities referring to parental requests as “inappropriate” by default.
You don’t just “get an EHCP” because you think your child needs one. Your child gets one if trained professionals assess them and deem their needs significant enough to require one, and they cannot get the support they need without one. This is all set out very clearly in law.
Despite this, not every child who should have an EHCP gets one, or the plans they get are insufficient to meet their needs. If they were, we wouldn’t see local authority decisions overturned in over 98% of appeals to the SEND First Tier Tribunal. We wouldn’t have the Local Governent Ombudsman finding fault in 92% of their SEND cases.
While some try to argue these things are “biased” in favour of parents, this claim couldn’t be more wrong, especially where local authorities can pay for solicitors and barristers against unrepresented parents. The tribunal simply enforces the law.
Myth 3. “Attitudes to special needs have changed” and we should return to a time where we felt “shame” over having disabled children
Our lack of shame is allegedly costing the country billions of pounds. If only we had the decency to pretend our children didn’t have a problem. My two non-verbal children live at home and have a fulfilling, effective education thanks to their EHCPs and the SEND tribunal. I’m not remotely ashamed of them. Thanks to their legal rights, they are thriving rather than being institutionalised. Framing this change in attitude as a negative is beyond problematic, but it’s nothing we haven’t heard before.
Myth 4. “A child categorised as having SEND is likely to get special treatment, for instance to move around the class while others are sitting still or to take more time in exams.”
Attempting to make education more equitable is not a bad thing. Making reasonable adjustments for disabled people is the cornerstone of an accessible society. Children with SEND are disadvantaged compared to their peers from the earliest point in their education.
But additional help is not just handed out and overwhelmingly, these children experience the opposite of special treatment. Nobody is handed extra time unless there’s medical evidence that it’s required. Getting “special treatment”, otherwise known as “getting a child’s needs met” is a lengthy and exhausting battle. . . .
Myth 5. “Schools have an incentive to get an EHCP for a pupil”
If this were true, there would never be any parental applications for an EHCP and children wouldn’t languish for years without the right support. EHCPs do (sometimes) come with funding attached to fund the provisions identified by professionals as necessary. Ask any school and they’ll tell you that cuts to their budgets mean they often don’t have the funds to make the provision set out in an EHCP. Ask any parent of a child with an EHCP in a mainstream school and you’re likely to hear about provision stipulated in their legal document that isn’t being made.
Myth 6. “The increase in special needs education has been driving up costs.”
The decrease in non-statutory support, before many children meet the threshold for a statutory plan, is driving up costs and EHCP numbers. Huge delays for therapies and assessments are driving up costs and numbers. Leaving needs unidentified and unmet as they worsen increases costs, not just in educating disabled children but in terms of lifelong social care and benefit costs, family carers being taken out of the workforce, and much more.
Myth 7. We are spending too much money on transport, and costs are “astonishing”
What’s the solution to this? More suitable mainstream or specialist places closer to home. Who’s responsible for this not being available? Not demanding parents. I haven’t met a parent yet who wants their child to be travelling for hours a day in a taxi just to access an education. Where possible, children are placed on shared transport. If the only school that could meet your child’s needs was in the next county, would you be able to get them there and back each day? Could you manage several hours of commuting to a school each day while keeping a roof over your head, especially if you have other children at different schools?
Myth 8. “It’s possible that some of the problem is the result of overdiagnosis”
This is a bafflingly nonsensical argument. No child gets support on the basis of a diagnosis alone. Rather, professionals specify the provision required by a child’s needs, whether they have a diagnosis or not. The law does not require a specific diagnosis for provision to be made; provision is based on needs. In fact, diagnosis may reduce the level of need in some circumstances, if the diagnosis is one for which there is effective treatment or therapies.
Myth 9. All this expenditure isn’t working anyway
I’m not sure how this is a surprise to anyone when children are routinely being failed, and where the outcomes measured are woefully insufficient for children with significant needs. With so many children waiting far longer than the law requires for support, and so many parents forced to appeal unlawful decision-making, no one is arguing the money is well spent, but what’s the alternative?
We’ve seen year after year that the failures within the system only increase costs and debt. The only way to reverse this is to fund what the children already in the system need while also investing in infrastructure and early intervention (which, the NAO makes clear, has no funding or process currently). This would prevent needs from worsening and reduce reliance on costly independent provision where the needs don’t dictate this. If we do not, the government will be looking back in another ten years, wishing the deficit was only £2bn.
You cannot just fail to meet the needs of disabled children without unwanted consequences -
we have decades of evidence of this, and it won’t suddenly change now. If you’re only measuring whether disabled children end up in employment, that’s not going to give you any sense of whether the system is improving outcomes. There are plenty of ways to measure progress if there’s the will but, as always, nobody really cares whether disabled children are actually making meaningful progress. Perhaps they’ll care about a failed generation of disabled children and the long-term costs of that, both financial and otherwise.
Myth 10: Disabled children are not “value for money”
While most commentators avoid saying the quiet part out loud, we can read between the lines. Whether the wider public likes it or not, disabled children exist and become disabled adults. Investment at the earliest stage can save the government huge sums in the long-term. Disabled adults who’ve met their potential, whatever that may be, cost the state less over the course of their lives. Right now, SEND provision costs around 10% of education expenditure. We spend five times as much on defence. The issue seems to be that it’s not the amount spent, it’s that it’s not seen as a worthwhile use of funds.
We will NEVER be ashamed of our children
I’ve quite deliberately focused on finances here because that’s the only language some understand. But it’s alarming that costs, value and “sustainability” never extend to the impact of the system’s failures on our most vulnerable children and their families. This system is not sustainable for us.
Despite this nasty narrative of greedy, lazy parents looking for an excuse, what we usually see are parents with depressingly low expectations of the system. All they want is what everyone else takes for granted. We all want our children to learn, make progress and live the best lives they can. It is a crushing indictment of our society that we frame this as “unreasonable”. Anyone who claims they wouldn’t fight for their child’s legal rights if they were in this situation—even Ms Duncan— is being disingenuous.
Despite the egregious views of those who have no experience or understanding of the realities of the system, we will never be ashamed of our children or of fighting for their legal rights. What we should be ashamed of, as a nation, is the implication that disabled children are a “waste of resources”. While others bicker about whether our children are deserving of support, we will continue to fight for the rights of our most vulnerable children until our system is functional, accessible and equitable, just like any decent parent would.
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