‘Dogma, drift and decay’…situation normal for Birmingham children’s services
It is, however, the pressing matter of special educational needs that is developing as a major issue for the politicians. A new home to school transport policy is now in place which is beginning to deny specialised transport to and from school for hundreds of disabled children.
The cash-saving policy could affect more than 3,000 youngsters with speech and communication difficulties and profound and severe learning difficulties.
At the moment most of these children are taken to and from school in a fleet of specially adapted council minibuses and people carriers. But parents are beginning to receive letters advising them to make their own arrangements for school travel, even though it is conceded that their children have behavioural difficulties and no sense of danger.
Although the new policy was approved earlier this year by the Labour cabinet, backbench councillors and some of the leadership are becoming concerned about a backlash from furious parents and the likelihood of a legal challenge.
Closing some or all of Birmingham’s 27 special schools would save money but would set a new debate raging among parents and the education establishment about the wisdom of educating children with severe special needs in mainstream schools.
The problems faced by the council are certain to get worse in the short term, with a further 5,000 pupils expected to be assessed as having special needs by 2021. The local authority will also have to implement provisions in the Children and Families Bill which places an increased duty on councils to co-operate with the NHS, to develop the local offer for children and young people with special needs and disabilities aged 25 and under.
Sally Taylor, Birmingham council service director for education and commissioning, said it was untrue that officers were intent on forcing special needs children to be educated in mainstream schools. “I have no predetermined view at all about inclusion or otherwise. My view is that we need the right services for the right children in the right places,” she told the committee.
