On 11th October cuts were announced in the Childrens and Young Peoples Services Department of Nottinghamshire County Council. These cuts include cuts to services for children with Special Educational Needs and Disabilities (SEND). After the cuts the county council will only be providing services it is legally bound to which obviously will have an impact on all children with Special Educational Needs and Disabilities (SEND) in the county. It plans to save £3.16 million by these cuts These cuts we object to are:

 - Delete posts in Inclusion Support (5-19) and Inclusion Support (Early Years) Services,including specialist teachers and teaching assistants of deaf, visually impaired, learning disabled and autistic children

 - Delete posts within the Educational Psychology Service (EPS). From 2012/13 relocate themajority of the costs of the EPS in to the Dedicated Schools Grant (DSG)

 - Delete posts within the Parent Partnership Service - Delete administative posts in SEND Strategic Services

 - Cease to subsidise SEND training opportunities for schools - Cease to provide free ICT equipment to schools for use by children with SEND

 - Realign short break providers under childrens disability service management structure - Integrate services for children with disability within Inclusion, Disability and Access

 - Review and remodel short break provision.

Children with Special Educational Needs are vulnerable and in need of support by taking this away the county council is putting these children at an unfair disadvantage and not giving them the best possible start in life. We are not asking for anything that they do not need here we are talking about services that allow these children the same access to education as children without Special Educational Needs and Disabilities and allowing their parents and/or carers a break from the demands of caring for a child with special needs and disabilities.

These cuts are a Category A service review, this means that the county council can move these changes forward immediately and they only require consultation with employees and trade unions, but where external partners are affected they will be informed of the change. So basically parents of children with SEND will be told what is happening AFTER the decisions have been made!!

We the undersigned believe these cuts to be wrong and that they will severely affect every child with Special Educational Needs in Nottinghamshire. We ask for a full review to be made of these changes by parliament and the views and wishes of parents to be sort before any of these changes are implemented.

PLEASE PLEASE DO NOT BE PUT OFF BY THE SITES REQUEST FOR A DONATION, CLICKING THAT YOU DONT WISH TO DONATE WILL STILL ALLOW YOUR SIGNITURE TO BE ADDED. THANKYOU

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