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News and Comment October 2024

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16 October (Part 2) - Expensive children

Councillor Davey (Conservative, West Heath) had chaired a sub-group of the Children’s Services Scrutiny Committee targeted at seeing if the number of EHCPs (Education, Health and Care Plans) could be reduced and maybe eliminate the Dedicated Schools Grant deficit. He briefly spoke of its recommendations and an extract from the written summary may be seen below.
Report
One of the improvements called for is greater involvement of local employers and finding more job coaches.

When listening to Council meetings there is usually something that stands out as interesting and quotable but this particular meeting came across as a muddle with unclear questions and rambling answers. Apart from being able to report that SEND Transport costs are worryingly high and the cost of looking after the most difficult children can be a million each with a bed for a single night hitting £900, nothing of great note came to the surface.

However it did became apparent that Bexley is not immune from children identifying as something their parents didn’t think they were. “Significant numbers and terrifying” according to one Councillor. “Horrifying” according to another.

It should be noted that Bexley only just missed out on an Outstanding Award following its Youth Justice Inspection. The manager who achieved the Good rating is Severine Aare.

 

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