Haringey Budget Consultation: No involvement for SEND parents
- By Brian Leveson
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- 13 Jan, 2021
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Haringey's 2021/22 Budget Consultation ends tomorrow, but no input was asked from SEND parents about the budget for SEND Transport and capital spend such as Changing Places in the boroughs parks. Just TWO examples of the importance of ensuring those least heard are included.
When's a newsletter not a newsletter? When there is no news in it!
Councillors and parents have been promised greater parent involvement in decision making in Haringey, and parents were sent a special education needs (SEND) newsletter in December, were there was mention of a future consultation on the Information and Advise Service (SENDIAS) - but no mention of the budget consultation including such areas of great concern and snail like progress as SEND Home to School Travel provision and changing places in parks to allow families with complex toileting needs access to open spaces in Haringey in order to gain the physical health, mental health and social benefits of accessing parks that are outlined in the borough plan.
Voiceless SEND Parents
According to the Haringey website (link: Budget Consultation 2021-22 | Haringey Council ): This consultation runs from Thursday 10 December 2020 to Thursday 14 January 2021, but there was no mention of this in the newsletter emailed to parents on 8th December 2020. Sadly, I can't share the newsletter with you as it is still not on the Haringey SEND 'Local News' webpage (link: Local Offer News | Haringey Council)
SEND Travel budget - Home to School travel support for children with special needs and disabilities - a highly contentious issue
SEND Travel are those buses and escorts that take our disabled children to school every day. Haringey had proposed to outsource this service in December 2019, but this was stopped after a re-examination of the decision by the Overview and Scrutiny Panel leading to the decision to be sent back to the Cabinet for reconsideration. Then, in June 2020 a decision was made "Not to proceed with the award of contract for the provision of SEND Transport Transformation Consultancy Services by an external improvement partner and that this procurement process be abandoned". (link: Agenda item - SEND Transport Transformation Plan Update | Haringey Council)
A proposed budget for SEND travel was discussed at cabinet (8th December 2020, link: Agenda for Cabinet on Tuesday, 8th December, 2020, 6.30 pm | Haringey Council ) where The Cabinet Member [responsible for the budget] continued to outline how the budget would continue to support the most vulnerable. In our view, that category continues to exclude the most profoundly disabled. We understand that there is a proposed increase in the SEND travel budget of only £0.5 million, which is unlikely to be enough given the £1.2 million overspend on this budget carried over from last year, reported to cabinet on the 14th July 2020 (link: Agenda for Cabinet on Tuesday, 14th July, 2020, 6.30 pm | Haringey Council ). Last year the department was taken a back by the cost of SEND travel.
1.6 ... The Children’s service budget has been adversely impacted over the last part of the year by unexpected high cost placements and increased costs in SEND transport.
6.4.2 Prevention and Early Intervention (£1.4m overspend) – the majority (£1.2m) of this is due to the provision of SEND transport costs with some further pressure from Children Centres arising from unachieved income targets and one off costs to improve the efficiency of the service. (link to report: Briefing for: (haringey.gov.uk) )
Councillor Brabazon hosted a 'conversation' event on 5th February 2020 and in the feedback report that was eventually produced in July 2020, the department state that "Though we operate within tight financial constraints, our aim is to develop services that are exemplars, and which are bespoke and fully consider the needs of the individual. It is even more important, that because resources are limited, that we involve parents, carers, and stakeholders in the co-production of services so they can influence the deployment of the resources on the services that most matter to them. Our improvement journey will be centred on communication, consultation, engagement, and participation and workings with stakeholders we will aim to create outstanding services." (link: send_transport_engagement_report.pdf (haringey.gov.uk) )
Difficult Parent ran a survey Haringey SEN travel Survey (difficultparent.com) and sent the results to the local authority, who rejected them. The main finding of which are shown in the panel below.
A proposed budget for SEND travel was discussed at cabinet (8th December 2020, link: Agenda for Cabinet on Tuesday, 8th December, 2020, 6.30 pm | Haringey Council ) where The Cabinet Member [responsible for the budget] continued to outline how the budget would continue to support the most vulnerable. In our view, that category continues to exclude the most profoundly disabled. We understand that there is a proposed increase in the SEND travel budget of only £0.5 million, which is unlikely to be enough given the £1.2 million overspend on this budget carried over from last year, reported to cabinet on the 14th July 2020 (link: Agenda for Cabinet on Tuesday, 14th July, 2020, 6.30 pm | Haringey Council ). Last year the department was taken a back by the cost of SEND travel.
1.6 ... The Children’s service budget has been adversely impacted over the last part of the year by unexpected high cost placements and increased costs in SEND transport.
6.4.2 Prevention and Early Intervention (£1.4m overspend) – the majority (£1.2m) of this is due to the provision of SEND transport costs with some further pressure from Children Centres arising from unachieved income targets and one off costs to improve the efficiency of the service. (link to report: Briefing for: (haringey.gov.uk) )
Councillor Brabazon hosted a 'conversation' event on 5th February 2020 and in the feedback report that was eventually produced in July 2020, the department state that "Though we operate within tight financial constraints, our aim is to develop services that are exemplars, and which are bespoke and fully consider the needs of the individual. It is even more important, that because resources are limited, that we involve parents, carers, and stakeholders in the co-production of services so they can influence the deployment of the resources on the services that most matter to them. Our improvement journey will be centred on communication, consultation, engagement, and participation and workings with stakeholders we will aim to create outstanding services." (link: send_transport_engagement_report.pdf (haringey.gov.uk) )
Difficult Parent ran a survey Haringey SEN travel Survey (difficultparent.com) and sent the results to the local authority, who rejected them. The main finding of which are shown in the panel below.
Changing Places in Parks
We discussed benefits of Changing Places in Parks in one of our first blogs in February 2019 " Haringey has asked us: If you had 15K, which public building in Haringey would you spend it on, and what would you do to it to make the building more accessible for your child?", (link: Haringey has asked us: If you had 15K, which public building in Haringey would you spend it on, and what would you do to it to make the building more accessible for your child? (difficultparent.com)).
People with very complex and multiple physical and learning disabilities cannot access standard accessible toilets. They require hoists and changing beds and one or two carers to help facilitate their personal care needs whilst maintaining their dignity and well wellbeing. The charity Changing Places campaign for appropriate toilets in city centres, shopping centres, leisure facilities, libraries, sports stadia, and elsewhere to meet the needs of an estimated 250,000 people across the UK with complex personal care needs. That is equivalent to the population of Haringey being denied access to leisure facilities and sports stadia or restaurants and pubs or shops and supermarkets because there is no place appropriate to meet their personal care needs.
Since 2016 we have been requesting this to various officers and political leaders at the local authority, all of whom agree that Changing Places are much needed. We have had meeting with the managers of the parks service and a project officer was appointed. We even had a meeting in Finsbury Park at the suggested location with an Assistant Director, Councillor Brabazon and the project manager - yet there is no mention whatsoever in the capital budget plans (link: Microsoft Word - Appendix 5 - Capital bid descriptions 30.11.20.docx (haringey.gov.uk) ) - making promises made and repeated since 2016 very difficult to beleive.
People with very complex and multiple physical and learning disabilities cannot access standard accessible toilets. They require hoists and changing beds and one or two carers to help facilitate their personal care needs whilst maintaining their dignity and well wellbeing. The charity Changing Places campaign for appropriate toilets in city centres, shopping centres, leisure facilities, libraries, sports stadia, and elsewhere to meet the needs of an estimated 250,000 people across the UK with complex personal care needs. That is equivalent to the population of Haringey being denied access to leisure facilities and sports stadia or restaurants and pubs or shops and supermarkets because there is no place appropriate to meet their personal care needs.
Since 2016 we have been requesting this to various officers and political leaders at the local authority, all of whom agree that Changing Places are much needed. We have had meeting with the managers of the parks service and a project officer was appointed. We even had a meeting in Finsbury Park at the suggested location with an Assistant Director, Councillor Brabazon and the project manager - yet there is no mention whatsoever in the capital budget plans (link: Microsoft Word - Appendix 5 - Capital bid descriptions 30.11.20.docx (haringey.gov.uk) ) - making promises made and repeated since 2016 very difficult to beleive.
If you thought SEND was bad - the NHS is seemingly prepared to throw away money to private companies
About 3 or 4 times a year we get the euphemistic message 'Parents please note we have put a letter in your child's bag' - its a world away from how a child's death was handled in my child's first school
More of a trial by ordeal than a well organised clearly set out administrative process for moving the care of vulnerable young adults from Haringey's Children's Services to Adult Services. We have been failed at every stage of the process.
Never EVER get on the bus without a camera running if you need the priority wheelchair space
The reality of using a London Bus in the teeming rain on a Sunday afternoon is no joke when the parents of a paraplegic person in a wheelchair clash with the self-entitled buggy-pushing parents of toddlers.
At 3pm today I received some barefaced lies from Haringey Council Adult Social Care in response to a photograph I published online yesterday and the media interest it generated
Haringey SEND Transport are insisting that a 17 year old minibus with no air conditioning is a suitable vehicle to transport my paraplegic son in this heatwave. The appalling conditions inside the minibus inside the bus is something they knew about last summer, yet they have to date done nothing whatsoever provide a suitable minibus this year nor appropriately mitigate the temperatures inside the minibus.The conditions inside the minibus are so bad that they triggered multiple seizures during the heatwave as my son has epilepsy, which they SEND transport department know about and they also know that they are triggered by heat.It is not just son who is impacted: last year we know of one child who died on Haringey SEND Transport in the summer heatwave and another who had seizures.
I am simply asking a question - are we all absolutely certain that the road closure / travel restrictions (commonly know as LTNs) placed on some of the most severely disabled people who are wholly reliant on cars are absolutely necessary
Haringey's road closures exemptions policy for disabled people is not fit for purpose, unduly burdensome and intrusive - it's time to stand up against the pro-LTN lycra-clad cycling bullies
Is the argument for and against exemptions for disabled people in Low Traffic Neighbourhoods really a case of GOOD versus EVIL?
