How cash-strapped councils are mocking disabled children & ‘putting up brick wall to difficult parents’ begging for help

CALLOUS council workers mock, ridicule and block help for families with special educational needs children, whistleblowers have claimed. Staff deliberately ignore phone calls, refuse to put their contact details on emails and fail to meet parents face-to-face as families struggle to cope alone, according to those who work in the system. Sara Donnelly, 43, of Bexley, London, is a former head teacher who works as a SEN consultant and also has a 12-year-old daughter, Ava, who has autism and ADHD Credit: John McLellan SEND advocate Claire Walley, 39, of west London, is an ex-deputy head who also worked as a support worker Credit: Sonja Horsman – Commissioned by The Sun One worker tells us: “A whole generation of children are being failed.” The shocking revelations come as Labour brings in sweeping reforms to the SEND school system, leaving parents further confused. Sign up for the Fabulous newsletter Thank you! We spoke to four current and former local authority workers who told us that parents were being ‘gaslit’ as they desperately try to get help for their children, mainly in mainstream schools. Most are fighting for Education, Health and Care Plans (EHCPs) which give their children legal rights to classroom support like teaching assistants and speech therapy. Whistleblowers claim cash-strapped councils are refusing to grant the plans because they cost too much money – and allege they are told not to “leave a paper trail” to make it hard for parents to appeal. One SEND council worker told us: “I’ve been told not to put my number on emails, not to reply to emails, not to make phone calls, not to meet families and not to leave a paper trail, “They are purposely making it hard for families to access support. “I once sent a follow-up email so there was a written record of something. Most read in Fabulous “I then got a message saying ‘please don’t do that again because it could come out in a freedom of information request. “It’s all about saving money. It comes from above and is pushed down. It’s a toxic workplace; it’s systemic – if you don’t follow their rules you are penalised. “The managers laugh and belittle parents. There’s a lot of gatekeeping, and it feels very immoral. There’s a high turnover of staff, and it makes me wonder if some people leave because they can’t bear to morally do the job anymore? She said she raised her worries with management but was told to “be quiet”, adding: “They know they’ve got something to hide.” “It’s wrong because they are failing a whole generation of children,” she adds. SEND advocate Amy Ovenden, 33, from Maidstone, Kent, has three children, two who need extra support at school Credit: Jim Bennett – Commissioned by The Sun Her 11-year-old Leighton has an EHCP while her five-year-old Ronnie has been refused help Credit: Jim Bennett – Commissioned by The Sun More than 700,000 children have EHCPs across the UK, costing about £12 billion a year. The Government plans to restrict them to ‘those with most complex needs’ and replace them with individual support plans, but charities say it has left parents confused as to who will qualify for which. Families who are denied EHCPs can appeal at tribunal – but the specialists we spoke to say council workers refuse to put anything in writing in case it’s used by parents to win their case. One former special needs officer, who worked across 18 local authorities, says: “They are more concerned about budgets than young children. “Parents get labelled as difficult – and it’s because they know the code of practice and SEND law. “It’s not just local authorities. I’ve been in schools where I’ve heard people laughing about families, making disparaging flippant remarks about parents. “Some comments have real venom –‘Here we go again.’ ‘They’ll never be satisfied’. “‘I’m not a social worker, why are you bringing this to my door?’ “‘I’m not a nurse or a mental health practitioner’ or ‘Don’t expect me to do this, I’m a teacher ’. They are all water-cooler conversations, and there are no records.” Another council employee, who worked in an administrative role in the East Midlands, said she left her job due to insensitive remarks about families. She says: “I just couldn’t face it anymore. “Some of the comments from colleagues were awful – and ignorant. One person told me: ‘This child looks like they had Down’s Syndrome, but they don’t seem to have it anymore.’” An ex NHS speech therapist, who now works privately, said getting SEND workers to agree to pay for sessions is “very tricky”. She says: “One of the biggest issues is the high turnover of case workers and no perception of urgency. Getting case workers to agree to pay for SEND provision is very tricky. “One case worker, for example, emailed me saying we have signed off this provision, can you provide it? I emailed back within five minutes only to get an out-of-hours message that said: ‘I have now left my job.’ “We had been interacting back and forth for weeks, and she had plenty of opportunities to say: ‘I’m leaving this week. Here’s who you can contact.’ But she’d said nothing and the out-of-office message didn’t include any contact details. “I was emailing another case worker back and forth for months trying to sort provision out – then they emailed me saying: There is no record of this child on my system.’ We’d exchanged 45 emails previously.” Councils have been blasted by Lib Dem MP Chris Coghlan, who handed education secretary Bridget Phillipson a dossier of 1,253 family testimonies of ‘unlawful conduct’ by councils. He tells The Sun: “ It is becoming ever harder for the Government and parliament to deny what’s going on here. “The combination of the whistleblower and testimonies demonstrates that this is happening all over the place – it can’t be dismissed as just one dodgy local authority. “I think some of the behaviour by officers in local authorities is likely to have reached the threshold of criminal activity, ie, misconduct in public office.” “The idea that officers are laughing about families being denied support is incredulous – but I believe it. “It starts off through lack of money. This encourages officers to cut corners to save costs. It becomes a habit, and they become indifferent and brutalised. One parent, who lives in south-west England, discovered council staff were laughing at her and, when she wanted to change her child’s EHCP, wrote ‘Here we go again.” in emails. The mum, who asked not to be named, applied to see all the data about her case and was horrified to see disparaging comments written on internal emails, including one with laughing emojis. The Sun has seen copies of the messages. One reads: “I think we are finally in the clear now with this one’, while another states: “If xx calls to speak to me, tell her I’m in meetings all day.’” She said: “The very people who were supposed to support me with my child were belittling me as a parent. “I’m trying my best for my child and getting slagged off for it. It was harrowing to see these emails.” Mum-of-two Sarah Cripps, 40, of Surrey, gave up a six-figure cyber security job to fight her local council. She has five-year-old twins George and Teddy, who needed an EHCP. She says: “I can never get hold of my case worker; my calls and emails are ignored. “When I did get an EHCP, I wasn’t involved in consultation for it. “We had to pay for a teaching assistant for our son for three months in order to prove to the local authority that he needed one – it nearly bankrupted us. “I believe the council is deceitful, illegal and unethical.” SEND advocate Claire Walley, 39, of west London, is an ex-deputy head who also worked as a support worker. She says: “A lot of people are comparing this to the post office scandal. “It isn’t just an isolated incident, it isn’t just one whistleblower – it’s the entire local authority system that is functioning in this terrible way. “Communication is absolutely shocking. I once had to go and sit in the local authority reception to try and talk to staff about one of the children in school.” “Local authorities have five days in which to reply to emails so if I email on a Monday, I know I won’t get an email back before 5pm on the Friday.” Sara Donnelly, 43, of Bexley, London, is another former head teacher who works as a SEN consultant and also has a 12-year-old daughter, Ava, who has autism and ADHD. She said she has experienced “frustrations” on both sides of the system. Sara said: “One of the biggest issues was communication. It often felt like there was a brick wall between schools, families and local authority SEND teams. “Parents would regularly ask me to step in because they simply couldn’t get a response from their caseworker, and I frequently found myself escalating emails to senior managers just to get an acknowledgement. “As a parent, I also struggled to obtain clear records explaining how decisions had been made.” Another SEND advocate Amy Ovenden, 33, from Maidstone, Kent, has three children, two who need extra support at school. Her 11-year-old Leighton has an EHCP while her five-year-old Ronnie has been refused help. She said: “The local authorities don’t want to help families – they view it all as a joke, as sport “Parents are forced to pay for a service just to get what they need because they can’t get the help.” Jane Harris, Vice Chair of the Disabled Children’s Partnership, said The Sun’s findings reflect their own research into SEND care. She said: “Three in five parents told us they feel they have been lied to by the authorities meant to support their disabled children. “Years of failing to fund services properly have led to a fight amongst education, health and social care services over whose responsibility it is to give children the ordinary things in life they need and deserve. Things like the chance to learn and for their parents to work rather than caring 24/7. As a result, a culture of gaslighting and obstructing struggling families has been allowed to thrive in too many areas of the country.” A Department of Education spokesperson says: “No family should have to fight to get the support their child needs. The Education Secretary has made clear that the behaviour in these allegations is completely unacceptable. “We are proud to be delivering the biggest reform to the SEND system in a generation, including backing local authorities to plan school places effectively, issue EHCP plans on time and provide the expertise that schools and families desperately need. “We are taking a zero-tolerance approach to local authorities’ failing families and will not hesitate to intervene if they do not meet the clear expectations we have set out for them.” Cllr Helyn Clack, Cabinet Member for Children, Families and Lifelong Learning adds: “While we cannot comment on the circumstances of individual children, we recognise that pressures on SEND systems are being felt nationwide, and we want to be clear that families’ experiences matter, and we are committed to listening and improving. “More than 19,000 children in Surrey have Education, Health and Care Plans, a number that has risen significantly in recent years and reflects both increased demand and better identification of need. “We have implemented an extensive SEND improvement plan over recent years, which includes investing over £211 million to expand specialist provision and strengthen support in mainstream schools, £4.9 million on additional staff, and recently introducing centralised inbox and phone systems to ensure a more reliable and timely service. “We recognise there is more to do, and we’re committed to building a system that delivers better outcomes for every child and family in Surrey.” SEND Q&A WHO will still be eligible for an Education, Health and Care Plan under the new system — what counts as complex need? CHILDREN and young people whose needs go “beyond what mainstream settings can routinely provide” will still qualify for an EHCP. They will be “retained and improved” and will give a legal entitlement to more intensive or complex support. If your child needs a Specialist Provision Package, the statutory protection remains in place. But the Department for Education has not specified which specific conditions count as not being able to be catered for in mainstream schools. WILL my child still be able to attend a special school? YES. Special schools remain “vital” for children and young people with the most complex needs, and investment will increase the number of places available. Any child in a special school place in September 2029 will be able to stay there until they finish their education. WILL the Individual Support Plan be as comprehensive as an EHCP? AN ISP will be legally required for all children with SEND and will set out their needs, day-to-day support and intended outcomes. But for complex needs, only an EHCP will carry the statutory protection and legal entitlement to more intensive support. WHAT type of support can be included in an ISP? ISPs can record support across the three layers: targeted help like small group interventions and reasonable adjustments; access to specialists; and, where needed, links to Specialist Provision Packages covering education, health and care. IF my child currently has an EHCP will it get taken away? NO. EHCPs will continue to be a central part of the new system and there will be no changes to existing support before at least September 2030. Comment now