Catch up on the latest political news from across Kent with Rob Bailey, joined by the Conservative Ashford MP Damian Green and Tonbridge and Malling council leader Matt Boughton.
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00:00 Welcome to the Kent Politics Show live on KMTV. I'm Rob Bailey.
00:28 And tonight, what will Rishi Sunak's new-look Conservatives have in store for Kent?
00:33 Ahead of next week's Tory party conference, I'm joined by a senior Kent MP and a council
00:38 leader to find out.
00:40 But first, all this week on KMTV, we've been running stories about services for children
00:44 with special educational needs here in Kent.
00:48 We've heard from many parents with concerns that their children's needs are not being
00:52 met.
00:53 Among them was Zoe from Ashford who told us her daughter Ellie has been out of school
00:56 for four years.
00:59 Literally on the first page there's an error. My child is not year seven, she's actually
01:04 year nine.
01:07 If you go on to the next one, this is section A, that should be parent carers views. It's
01:13 blank.
01:14 Were you ever asked to put your views in there? Did you ever send your views?
01:18 Legislation states that you need to take the input of a parent or child with a section
01:22 A.
01:24 Kent County Council told us it does not comment on individual cases, but it does apologise
01:28 when mistakes are identified.
01:30 Well joining me this week is the Conservative Ashford MP Damien Green and Tunbridge and
01:35 Morland Council leader Matt Borton.
01:37 Welcome to both of you.
01:38 Damien, do you understand the frustration of parents who are trying to get their children
01:42 into a school that's ready for their needs and they feel that they just can't do it?
01:46 Yeah, absolutely.
01:47 And I'm afraid that's not the only case I've got ongoing at the moment of parents in Ashford
01:53 who are frustrated by the system.
01:55 So clearly one of the things that needs to happen is that decisions need to be made faster
02:01 and they need to be made efficiently and that clearly is an improvement that we need to
02:06 see in Kent County Council.
02:09 There is now a national plan since this March for improving the whole special educational
02:17 needs area, backed by quite a lot of money.
02:20 The government will be spending about £10 billion over the period on this.
02:25 And we will benefit particularly here in Kent from it because they're creating seven new
02:32 special needs schools across the whole country, of which two will be in Kent.
02:38 So things I hope and expect will get better, but I absolutely get the frustrations at the
02:44 moment.
02:45 The plan announced in March, it's a three year trial before the full rollout in 2026.
02:52 The heads union said we're yet to see anything to suggest the government understands the
02:56 gravity of the situation and the urgency with which they need to act.
03:00 The change is coming, but is it coming too slowly?
03:03 Well, I mean, you can always say change is coming too slowly, but the fact that there
03:07 is some individual ideas in it of having better digital records so you don't get some of the
03:13 delays and mistakes that we see at the moment.
03:17 I think money is important, but it's not the only thing that needs to happen to improve
03:23 the system and both halves are being gripped in this new strategy.
03:26 Matt, from your point of view, obviously you're engaged with this at a kind of lower level
03:30 if you like, so we're talking to people in the borough of Tunbridge and Morling, I imagine
03:33 a lot about these kind of issues.
03:35 Is the change coming fast enough from your point of view?
03:37 Yeah, as Damian said, there's always a case to make these sort of changes quicker, but
03:41 it comes down to the fact of not just making change for change's sake, but making change
03:46 that actually helps the families and the children that are affected and, as we've just seen,
03:53 those who've ended up in a position through no fault of their own where they're not getting
03:59 the support and the care that they need.
04:01 I know of a particular instance of a family in the Tunbridge area who are travelling all
04:06 the way over to Canterbury every day for school places and I know of something that's happening
04:11 the complete other way round.
04:13 So it's about making sure in those individual cases that they're being as efficient as possible
04:18 at the county council.
04:19 That will help them in terms of dealing with the matter and also reducing the overspend
04:24 that they've got in that area and also making sure that the best outcome, which isn't to
04:29 travel from Tunbridge to Canterbury every day, is there for the children who need it.
04:34 I was talking to Craig McKinley last week and he's got a constituent in the same kind
04:38 of thing where they're travelling to Sevenoaks from Thanet every day.
04:42 There's an interesting one there because Kent is kind of a special case in all of this.
04:47 Kent is more likely, a child with special educational needs, more likely to attend a
04:51 special school in Kent than anywhere else in the country where they're more likely to
04:55 be accommodated in mainstream schools.
04:57 Twice as likely to attend an independent special school in Kent, £40,000 a year per pupil
05:04 out of the public taxpayer's purse for that.
05:07 Are Kent running this in an inefficient way do you think?
05:11 It will depend.
05:12 I think it's impossible to generalise from those statistics, interestingly they are,
05:17 actually anything good or bad because each individual child will have a separate set
05:23 of needs and they may well be best dealt with in a special needs setting rather than mainstream
05:30 education.
05:31 We all hear terrible tales of children who can't cope with mainstream education and who
05:36 are more or less left to languish in it, but others who would benefit from it and actually
05:41 could integrate and the children who are at the margin always create controversy, perfectly
05:49 reasonably.
05:50 I think the point about independent schools is just that there happen to be a lot, some
05:55 of them I know because some of them are in my constituency, are very, very good and parents
06:00 are clamouring to have their children at that type of school.
06:05 So I think it would be unfair to criticise Kent County Council for meeting the needs
06:11 and demands of parents in that particular regard.
06:13 Well actually it's a good opportunity for us to listen to the views of three parents
06:17 that we spoke to outside County Hall this week where there was a protest about special
06:21 educational needs.
06:22 I think we can go to that now.
06:24 We all have autistic children that have been failed by KCC.
06:28 So at the moment there aren't enough SEN school places for our children, our children are
06:33 being forced into mainstream, it's not good enough for the children at mainstream and
06:37 for our children.
06:38 We don't want our children failed anymore.
06:39 And the same as these two.
06:40 My oldest is in secondary school in mainstream and he's just had to struggle the whole way
06:47 through and now he's having to drop GCSEs.
06:50 As we've already said, there is a general sense that parents are frustrated about all
06:54 of this.
06:55 The sheer volume of numbers in Kent is quite a challenge isn't it?
06:58 We've got 21,000 children with an active education, health and care needs plan at the
07:04 moment in Kent and it's extraordinary how many more we have than similarly sized areas.
07:11 Birmingham is the next biggest regional authority after Kent.
07:13 It has 1,320 children who were given these plans last year.
07:18 In Kent that number was 2,314.
07:19 Matt, why do you think that we have so many here?
07:25 It comes down to the criteria that's being used at the end of the day.
07:28 And I think there is a question that Kent have said that they're investigating around
07:33 this and is the Kent figure too high, is the Birmingham figure too low?
07:37 As you say, there's different ways of looking at this.
07:41 Ultimately though, and I think Damien's right, which is that the quality of education in
07:45 Kent is what brings a lot of people here who move into the county from elsewhere.
07:51 Whether that be mainstream education, but also special schools as well.
07:55 We've got some fantastic ones in the borough.
07:59 And it comes down to parental choice, absolutely, and also the child's needs.
08:04 And there is sometimes going to be a tension between the local authority and what parents
08:10 think are right for their children.
08:11 I'm sure Damien sees this in particular in his inbox.
08:15 And ultimately the role of the council in this is to make sure that it's got the right
08:21 criteria in place so that it can make a decision about the best education for the child.
08:29 That's the fundamental job.
08:30 And I think by focusing on that fundamental, you can then establish whether the number
08:34 is too high or too low or just about right.
08:37 We can't look at this as a case of you must get the numbers down to Birmingham levels.
08:41 You've got to look at this as are the children getting the best education for their needs.
08:46 Damien, what do you think that Kent has such a high number of?
08:49 I mean, I completely agree with that point that we shouldn't try and have a sort of norm
08:57 of X percent of children must have a particular type of document or indeed a particular type
09:06 of education.
09:07 I think there are probably lots of reasons why Kent is an outlier on this.
09:12 It may be a sort of demographic thing that we have particularly articulate parents who
09:20 know what their children want and are prepared to fight for it.
09:25 And also the fact that there is this excellent education available that more and more people
09:33 want to access it.
09:36 So there could be a variety of reasons that the level of demand as well as the level of
09:41 supply will affect.
09:43 So it's really difficult to make any kind of generalisations about why Kent is here
09:48 and Birmingham is there.
09:50 And indeed in many ways when we compare different local authorities it's important to compare
09:56 Kent with similar local authorities.
09:58 So Kent in relation to Hampshire or Lancashire is another one Kent is often prepared to.
10:05 Those are more meaningful comparisons than say Kent and Birmingham.
10:10 One of the things that a lot of parents have said about the problem with the transition
10:14 to mainstream schools for their children which is a target Kent County Council has set itself.
10:18 It wants 80 percent of children with ECHP, these plans, to be attending mainstream schools
10:23 by the end of this year.
10:25 One of the big challenges for that is recruiting enough teaching assistants in schools which
10:29 is obviously a big challenge for schools.
10:32 One of the news stories we ran this week said that the starting salary for a teaching assistant
10:37 in Kent in jobs that are being advertised right now is £14,000.
10:41 Is that enough?
10:44 When you say, I'm not sure I believe that figure to be perfectly honest.
10:49 I'm not aware of schools offering that for full time teaching assistants.
10:54 I'll be honest I don't know the hours per week.
10:56 I mean as I say I slightly raise an eyebrow at that and I mean the answer is if people
11:03 aren't applying for the jobs at that level then no it isn't enough and we'll have to
11:07 offer more.
11:08 Can you offer more because salaries have been, this is what the strikes have been about in
11:12 teaching recently, salaries don't go up do they?
11:15 Well salaries have gone up.
11:16 I mean the teachers have got a decent deal which they deserve and they've accepted it.
11:20 So actually the schools are happily one of the public services that are now back to normal
11:26 and able to get on with the job.
11:29 So happily that particular problem has gone away.
11:33 OK it's time for us to take a short break now.
11:36 When we come back, which councils are planning to sell off their civic buildings to cut costs?
11:42 And will the Prime Minister pull any rabbits out of his hat for Kent at the Conservative
11:46 Party conference next week?
11:49 Stay with us.
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