It is quite normal when trawling through FOI on the internet to find various exemptions given such as it will exceed the time and cost, or may lead to identification of individuals or may already be reasonably available in the public domain.
It is also an established principle in the UK that you are innocent until proven guilty. I know most parents with a child who comes under the SEN umbrella, or any individual in need of care services that it often can feel like that is not the case as many reports indicate their is a lot of "caregiver" blame bandied around.
The Children's Unhappiness and Surveillance bill ( official name Childrens Wellbeing and Schools bill) brings in, in the CNIS section punitive measures.
Non compliance with an SAO has the potential to land a parent in prison for almost a year and / or a level 4 fine. These are not insignificant measures, so you would have thought appropriate due diligence had been carried out to ensure that only those who are causing harm and neglecting their child's education would potentially be in scope.
That does not appear to be the case, as they have increased the CRIMINAL penalties, but they have also increased the reasons an LA can issue you an SAO in the first place. This means their is a higher chance than currently to end up on the wrong side of a disproportionate and inappropriate criminal sanction.
If SAO where used in a fair and lawful manner at all times and the SoS and relevant civil servants had looked at DFE own statistics and found the outlier LA's issuing significantly higher S437(1) notices and/ or SAO's. Then carried out basic due diligence to ensure that they where being issued in a fair proportionate and reasonable manner, not that the particular LAs had a different agenda to that intended by the current law. So the evidence supported that the current SAO process was working fairly for all then absolutely it makes sense to expand the SAO smorgasbord. However if the due diligence has not been done then it needs to be carried out before giving more power and duties to those appearing to abuse their existing powers. If it has been done and found wanting then a pause on moving forward must occur to prevent inevitable unjust outcomes, until the issues are resolved.
It was this FOI response of do not record that has led me to conclude that basic due diligence can not have occurred or if it did it will have shown issues.
https://www.whatdotheyknow.com/request/s4371_notices_36#incoming-2880696
Add comment
Comments