The start of the new school term – a time when the blood pressure of the average parent rises faster than mercury on a hot day. A time when coaxing children conditioned by holiday slovenliness into getting out of bed, wolfing down their cereal and getting their bloody shoes on, please god, we’ve only got five minutes and we can’t can’t can’t be late on the first day is enough to fray the nerves of even the most laid-back. However, for those parents whose children have disabilities which require Waltham Forest Council to arrange transport to and from school, the start of the latest school year – already difficult enough at the best of times – has been nothing short of a Kafka-esque nightmare. Grave concerns had previously been raised about changes to transport provision, as well as the lack of meaningful consultation with parents and children affected. The Council’s response to these concerns was that the changes had been made in order ‘to involve parents and carers more pro-actively in the process to work in partnership in finding more creative solutions to getting to school’, which indicates, firstly, that they need to employ a competent copyeditor, and, secondly, that their definition of ‘creative’ is what the average person would term ‘batshit crazy’.
Where to begin?
Parents are legally entitled to 5 days’ notice about the Council’s plans to get their children to school. Even this, in reality, is grossly inadequate, and as MP for Walthamstow Stella Creasy has said in her response to the emerging fiasco, ‘we have encouraged the Council to recognise that parents would require this information at least a month before implementation to enable them to appeal or make the necessary arrangements.’ What is truly shocking, however, is that the company contracted by the council to provide transport, CT Plus, failed even to meet this legal minimum. On the first day of school, many parents were left not knowing if their children were being picked up, let alone where. One parent reported that even by the Friday of the first week of school their situation was still up in the air, with no bus allocated to his son due to a ‘mix up’.
To make matters worse, whereas previously buses would collect children from their homes, the ‘creative’ solution arrived upon – supposedly in consultation with parents – has been to replace this with ‘pick up points’, where kids must be taken to await collection, come rain or shine. One parent reported being allocated a bus that arrived a full 40 minutes earlier than their previous slot, to which must be added the time needed to get their child from the house to the pick-up point. Their son, who is on the autistic spectrum, was accustomed to getting himself ready and leaving the house on his own. With no warning given of the change, his parents were unable to properly prepare him for his new routine, leaving him understandably distraught. Another parent turned up with their child at the designated time and place, only for the bus to arrive almost 40 minutes late. To make matters worse, the driver thought it appropriate to wait in the middle of a main road for the children to board.
Shambolic as the service has been, at least the parents above have been allocated buses. A number of other parents were told that their children would no longer be eligible for school transport at all. They should fear not, though, as instead they would be provided with ‘travel training’. Problem solved. What this travel training would actually entail was never explained, however, and sure enough, shortly before the start of term said parents received letters informing them that the training had gone the way of the Thames Garden Bridge – promised as a sure thing only to be declared as dead in the water. Rather than being given buses parents have been thrown under them, abandoned without even the faintest pretence of support.
The above are just a few of the many shameful stories that have been shared by parents in the past couple of weeks. The situation would be outrageous enough but for the sad fact this is merely the latest in a long line of fiascoes overseen by Waltham Forest Council. As one parent angrily pointed out, ‘Every year, to a differing degrees, something goes very wrong with transport. Every year parents make complaints and someone in power makes a statement. Every year nothing changes.’ Moreover, problems are by no means limited to issues of transport. As the parent of a child on the autistic spectrum I can personally attest to the dire state of speech therapy in the borough, the lack of early years intervention, as well as the difficulties both of obtaining an Education Health and Care (EHC) Plan and ensuring its (supposedly legally binding) stipulations are met. Meanwhile, services for children with serious mental health issues in the borough have been cut to the bone, as was made brutally apparent in a recent episode of Panorama. This, it seems, is the new normal.
The current situation has been exacerbated by a woeful lack of communication, both by CT Plus and the Council. As one parent vented, ‘Why is it virtually impossible to speak to anyone? And why does no one ever ring back when they say they will?’ CT Plus have responded that they received 1,500 calls in the week in question and ‘therefore many were missed’, as if this were some kind of excuse rather than a damning indictment of the ineptitude that is at the root of this situation. Frustrating, too, is the seeming inability for anyone in authority to acknowledge the true scale of the problem, let alone take responsibility for it. Instead, we are left with a void where buck-passing and blame-dodging preside, where services are outsourced without due diligence, and then when the shit inevitably hits the fan those who should be taking the reins instead scramble for cover. Yes, CT Plus have fallen abysmally short, but it is the Council that contracted them, that when putting the contract out to tender specified that the new system be based on drop-off and pick up points, that in the contract stipulated CT Plus was only required to give five days’ notice (to reiterate, the bare legal minimum) to parents about changes to transport. Ultimately, it is the Council – and by this I mean both Councillors and the relevant personnel employed by the Council – who must shoulder the blame. And, boy, there is a lot of blame to shoulder.
In 2019, Waltham Forest will be London Borough of Culture. When this was announced, many of us took considerable civic pride in this achievement. Since then, though, the Council’s (and certain councillors’) self-satisfied crowing, against a backdrop of deep and damaging cuts, has begun to stick in the throat. In particular, it is difficult to see how the council can justify a 2.3% (£651,000) reduction in High Needs funding for 2018/19 at the same time as approving an increase in expenses allowances for councillors. No one wants to poop the Borough of Culture party, it would just be reassuring if those in authority could muster a similar level of enthusiasm for dealing with the severe and pressing issues facing parents and children in the Borough. Last year, the chairwoman of the UN’s Committee on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities (CRPD) went on record as saying Government welfare cuts have created a ‘human catastrophe’ for disabled people in the UK. Whilst such callous indifference might almost be expected of a Tory government, it is both sad and disturbing to see Waltham Forest Council playing its own small part in making that human catastrophe a reality on the ground.
What can you do to help?
Write to your local councillors and/or MP to express your concern – you can do it here: https://www.writetothem.com
Join the Waltham Forest Special Education Crisis Facebook Group.
Follow Waltham Forest special education crisis on Twitter: @SENDCrisisWF
Waltham Forest Special Education Crisis 