EXCLUSIVE: Thousands of vulnerable children to miss out under Labour’s ‘contradictory’ Send plans

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Send Matters Coalition co-chair Helen Saul welcomed government plans to promote better early intervention by placing more Send children in mainstream schools.

But she warned the proposals will have “unintended consequences” for vulnerable children who won’t receive this support in the decade it is expected to take for the changes to come into force.

Speaking to the Morning Star ahead of Labour’s annual conference, she said that proposals to place fee caps on Send specialist independent schools and remove legal routes for parents to force local authorities to place Send children into them will lead to “tragic” outcomes for thousands of families.

She warned that they will also result in far greater costs to the state, as 80 per cent of young offenders in England and Wales have Send or are neurodivergent.

Ms Saul, 47, who has two autistic children with IQs high enough to be in Mensa, said that under the changes, tribunals will only be able to tell local authorities “to think again” when they refuse to name a school as part of a pupil’s Education, Health and Care Plan (ECHP).

In the more than 18 months it took to get an ECHP for her 13-year-old son Albert, he spent more than 12 months hiding in his mainstream school’s cupboard due to his Send, she said.

The proposed tribunal changes are “completely pointless and we are just going to be left in hoops as parents, in circles of delaying that decision because each time they delay they save money,” she said.

“There are lots of families that I support that while that process is going on, their children cannot go to school.

“It means thousands of families with children at home to be schooled and what that means is parents losing jobs — they are forced to be on benefits.”

She argued that independent schools are best placed to “carry the cost” of highly specialised Send provision until Labour’s plans for early intervention reduce demand.

“These kids need to be picked up by the system rather than criminal gangs. They are targeted by these kinds of people because they are vulnerable,” she said.