Please join me in calling upon the county councillors to hold the local authority to account for failing to do the following

1. Provide suitable alternative educational provision for children and young people with special educational needs and disabilities who are not able to go to go to school.
2. Have a clear and transparent process for approving people and organisations which have set up alternative provision and helping them to get authorised.
3. Comply with the statutory requirements for the LOCAL OFFER by failing to make the website clear and up to date.

Our family have been affected by all of these issues and know many others who have as well.

THE DETAIL:

1. The LA must provide suitable alternative educational provision for children and young people with special educational needs and disabilities who are not able to go to go to school.

THIS IS COVERED IN THE LOCAL GOVERNMENT OMBUDSMAN BOOKLET

'Out of School out of sight? Ensuring children out of school get a good education' published in July 2022.

The booklet has specific recommendations on the final page and says

'Councils should be accountable to the people who use them....We recommend a number of key questions that councillors, who have a democratic mandate to scrutenise the way councils carry out their functions, can consider asking'

We would ask the council to ask all of the questions concerned in the booklet which is accessible online.

Many of our children are of and young people are of compulsory school age but experience unlawful and entirely avoidable delays in having suitable provision.

Some of them get no provision whatsoever for extended periods of time, sometimes for years.

Some of them just get a few hours of Maths and perhaps English and the rest of what is documented in their Education and Health Care Plan is unlawfully not provided and when parents and carers ask about this there is no explanation.

Parents have asked for their child to receive provision from certain named organisations and are told by the LA that the organisation is not locally approved.

However, they then fail to point out to the parent that the Personal Budget regulations mean a family may ask for a personal budget to cover this provision by a personal budget with direct payments.

All of this is unlawful as the children and young people are entitled to full time education and to a broad and balanced curriculum.

They are also entitled to make applications for a personal budget with direct payments.

2. The LA are required to follow principles of transparency and accountability and it is indefensible that they lack a clear and transparent process for approving people and organisations which have set up alternative provision and helping them to get authorised.

I have researched this by speaking to some of the organisations concerned and have heard that the process of applying to become locally approved in Oxfordshire is a lot less clear than in other areas, it is cumbersome and difficult and many are refused authorisation and do not know why.

More than one provider told me off record that they had applied more than once but were just told the application was not completed with the required detail but had not idea what that detail might be.

One provider told me that the approach in at least one other local authority was different and as part of the process there was a feedback meeting where that LA flagged up any issues in the application process so that the applicant could address those issues.

This meant that suitable alternative provision could be approved without delay and children and young people could have their needs met without unnecessary barriers being put in place.

3. Comply with the statutory requirements for the LOCAL OFFER by failing to make the website clear and up to date.

The experience of parents and carers in Oxfordshire has been and continues to be that the way they find out about services to support their disabled children is by speaking to each other and by looking on social media.

It is unacceptable that we are not provided with this information on the local offer website which is almost impossible to use and not fit for purpose.

It feels like even finding the name of various special schools, is the work of a specialist SEND detective and can take weeks, months or even (in my case) years to put together.

In conclusion, the 2013 Department for Education guidance booklet

'Ensuring a good education for children who cannot attend school because of health needs - statutory guidance for local authorities' says at page 4-5:

'Local Authorities should not:

Have processes or policies in place which prevent a child from getting the right kind of provision and a good education.

Withhold or reduce the provision or type of provision, for a child because of how much it will cost (meeting the child's needs and providing a good education should be the determining factors).

... Have lists of health conditions which dictate whether or not they will arrange education for children or inflexible policies which result in children going without suitable full-time education (or as much education as their health condition allows them to participate in.)

We call upon the Council to hold the LA accountable and to remind them of their statutory duties and legal responsibility to ensure they act in a reasonable, transparent, fair and rational manner.

The rights these children have to a suitable education and to the provision in their education and health care plans are absolute and unqualified rights and are in no way dependant upon the LA having enough money or resources.

In any event, money can be saved by getting this right first time, rather than unlawfully delaying access to education and then drawing the whole process out resulting in children, including highly academically capable children taking many more years to get qualifications than their peers.

Money can be saved by providing suitably tailored packages of Education Other Than in School for children for whom attendance at school is inappropriate (which is the legal test after all) rather than by paying for them to be on roll at very expensive specialist schools which they cannot in any event access at all.