Louise Jones and Toby Perkins react to Derbyshire County Council’s failure in recent OFSTED SEND inspection and the new money from the Labour government to put it right.

Transcript

Louise Jones MP: Hi everyone. I’m Louise Jones, the MP for North East Derbyshire and I’m here with my neighbour, Toby Perkins, the MP for Chesterfield.

We are speaking to you today because we are really concerned about children with special educational needs across our constituencies. We’ve both heard from hundreds of people who are concerned that their children are not getting the support they need from Derbyshire County Council.

Toby Perkins MP: Earlier this year I had an Adjournment Debate, here in Parliament, to raise the fact that at that time Derbyshire County Council had £17.5 million coming in from central government to pay for additional places for special needs children. The research that we did, getting ready for that debate, revealed that only £1.5 million of that had actually been spent over the course of the last 6 years.

Last month the damning Ofsted inspection found that the services that Derbyshire County Council were providing for special needs children were the worst of those that they’ve investigated, anywhere in the country this year. They also discovered that there’s many children being excluded or suspended from school, many of them on a part time curriculum and many others, parents who are having to electively home educate because they simply can’t get the service that they need from Derbyshire County Council.

Louise Jones: This government believes that every child should have the best start in life bit it’s clear that there are systemic failings from Derbyshire County Council.

Toby Perkins: Last month, Bridget Phillipson announced new cash and also new powers to improve special needs education across the country. This is an issue everywhere but in Derbyshire it is particularly problematic. We’ll be working with the Department for Education, Bridget Phillipson, and the Labour Government to bring about the improvement that children across Derbyshire desperately need.