"Widespread and systemic failings” for Derbyshire children with special educational needs (SEND) to be debated in Parliament

Linsey Farnsworth, Labour MP for Amber Valley, is leading a discussion in Parliament tomorrow (Wednesday, February 12) on Derbyshire special educational needs and disabilities (SEND) support.

This follows a highly critical joint Ofsted and CQC inspection report on SEND support provided by Derbyshire County Council and the county’s health and social care system last year.

It found that for “many years”, children and families had been subject to “widespread and systemic failings”, with a mandatory action plan now in place aiming at rectifying problems, primarily relating to the delay in time for children to gain legally binding support plans enabling attendance in school with sufficient care.

Speaking to the Local Democracy Reporting Service ahead of the debate, Ms Farnsworth, elected last May, said the Labour Government “inherited a challenging position around SEND across the country”.

She said: “In Derbyshire, it is a real crisis. Families are fighting to get support for their children and say that everything is a battle.

“I want to ensure the pressure is kept on Derbyshire County Council to make improvements to the failings from its Conservative leadership.

“The stories I have heard from families are absolutely heartbreaking. Families are waiting months and years for support at every stage of the process.

“I have heard from families that are in such despair that both parents and their children have contemplated suicide.

“We need to act urgently because these aren’t rare cases, this is systemic.

“The words people use when they talk about going through this process are ‘hard’, ‘fighting’ and ‘battle’.

“I want the Government and the minister to be fully appraised of the impact to parents and educators in Derbyshire specifically and I will pull every lever I can to get DCC to finally act on what people have been telling them for years.

“There are families desperate for support and DCC has let them down.”

In response, Cllr Alex Dale, the county council’s cabinet member for education, said: “We welcome this debate – which is one we’ve already started and continues in Derbyshire – and welcome any chance to further explore the national challenges around SEND services we know we’re not alone in facing. I hope it’s constructive.

“A significant number of local authorities are in a similar situation to us in Derbyshire’s Local Area SEND Partnership due to rising demands and the need for significant additional funding and national reform, as well as other more local challenges.

“These we have acknowledged, we apologise for and are working hard to improve with our partners across health, schools and the private and public sector.

“This is not a one-agency issue, it’s a partnership responsibility and one that we, as part of the Derbyshire partnership, take very seriously.

“We’ve recently set up an independent improvement and assurance board and are meeting monthly with a robust plan in place, now approved by Ofsted, to drive forward improvement at pace.

“Meanwhile, we recently briefed all Derbyshire MPs, both on the national challenges and our local improvement activity as we’re keen to include them in opportunities to play a constructive role in our countywide partnership improvement work, and we’ll continue these briefings every three months.

“We’ve also extended this work at national level with a parliamentary briefing through the f40 education funding campaign group – which I chair – and I’ve recently written again to Linsey directly to offer any further information she needs to support her with the debate, and that offer is open to all of our MPs.

“SEND is one of our most complex and sensitive areas of work with children and families at its heart and we continue to work hard, with our partners, to improve our services to provide them with the support they need and deserve.”