Councils decide on plans for SEND (special educational needs and disabilities) children but are dealing with high volumes and stretched budgets, as well as more parents being aware of their ability to appeal.
Children with special educational needs are being 'segregated' and left to struggle in the wrong schools because councils are trying to 'save on costs', parents have told Sky News. Maire Leigh Wilson, whose four-year-old son has Down's syndrome, says she 'shudders to think' where he would be now had she not been in a 'constant battle' with her council.
Her council, Hounslow in southwest London, said they complete more than four in five new EHCPs within the statutory 20-week timescale, twice the national average. Hounslow Council said they 'put families at the heart of decision-making' and young people in the area with special educational needs and disabilities achieve, on average, above their peers nationally.
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