The case of Ben Haslam
Channel 4 News carried a worrying story on Monday, 14 July. While I would not go as far as my good friend Kev in describing it as evidence of fascism, it does raise serious questions about parental rights and the use of the law to decide issues of child welfare. The story concerns an autistic boy, Ben Haslam, who was making good progress at The Shires. I say “was” advisedly because Bedfordshire County Council, who were funding his 52 week a year placement, were due to cease payment at the end of the week. This was the result of a high court ruling which upheld Bedfordshire’s appeal against the decision by a Special Educational Needs and DISability Tribunal, aka SENDIST, that had upheld a previous appeal by Ben’s parents against Bedfordshire’s refusal to fund Ben’s place at The Shires.
From the news report it is obvious that Ben, who has severe learning difficulties and no spoken language has benefitted from his residential school placement. He used to constantly demand food and was clinically obese. He was incontinent. He was violent. He was self injuring and very unhappy. After 5 months at The Shires he has lost weight, is almost toilet trained and is a lot happier. As his mother says,
“It’s a pleasure to have him around. It really is a pleasure”
But happiness has a price. In Ben’s case it was £250,000 in annual school fees. This was too much for Bedfordshire who argued that they could meet Ben’s needs for less than half the price, £120,000 to be precise. It was not clear from the report whether or not they had included his need to be happy in their calculations.
Ben’s parents clearly do care about Ben’s happiness. It cost them £43,000, their life savings, to gather the evidence to support their case and hire expert legal representation to win their appeal. Now, after losing in the High Court, they face additional bills for costs, including those of the local authority, of around £20,000.
Bedfordshire propose to educate Ben in a local authority special school and house him in a local children’s care home. Neither the school nor the care home are autism specific. If we consider Ben’s problems prior to going to The Shires, his previous local authority special school, which is now closed, did not exactly cover itself in glory. This is no disrespect to local authority special schools. I teach in one. But I remember two pupils with whom we struggled, who went on to make excellent progress at residential schools. I can think of others I have taught who would have benefitted from the 24 hour curriculum that specialist, residential schools can offer. There is no way that you can replicate 52 week total provision by talking a child into care and bussing them to a local authority special school for 40 weeks a year.
Bedfordshire claim that Ben’s case, like every other, is
“considered individually and according to a child’s specific needs.”
If true this marks a dramatic change from their position of 3 years ago when Bedfordshire were the subject of criticism from government because they were writing generic statements of educational need and leaving it up to schools to decide on provision instead of specifying what provision to make. In the view of the government minister, if this were general policy, Bedfordshire
“will not be complying with its statutory duty and determining the special educational provision in other cases, perhaps the majority of cases.”
So have Bedfordshire put their house in order? Can the Haslams place Ben in local authority care with any degree of confidence? It might help if Bedfordshire agreed to waive costs and remove at least one financial burden from Ben’s family. After all they did tell Channel 4 News that the relevant section of the law (section 20 of the Children’s Act)
“promotes partnership in meeting a child’s needs.”
It strikes me that this is a very strange partnership if it is based on adversarial law and the parents are left making all the concessions and picking up the bill for both sides of the legal proceedings. and the Haslam’s are not a unique case. The BBC disability forum, OUCH!, provoked some interesting comments on Ben’s case.
Take this from a Bedfordshire employee who knows Ben.
I work within Children with Disabilities in Bedfordshire, and have previously worked with Ben. To see the change in him is incredible, and shows that residential schools do offer the best facilities for children with severe autism as they provide a high level of care, knowledge, structure and consistency.
Or this:
Bosscat, you are absolutely right there is no effective provision for severe autism in Bedfordshire. Local provision is based on resources and not the needs of the children and for far too long Bedfordshire has been getting away with funding the cheapest option, which generally means inadequate and substandard provision for our most vulnerable of children. Children with severe autism need access to specialist support for their severe and complex needs; they need extended support beyond the school day, more than this authority can reasonably give.
Or this from a parent in Bedfordshire:
The day-school system is failing children with severe autism in Bedfordshire and lack of resources within the county means that many severely disabled children are being denied access to programmes, treatments and therapies that could significantly improve their quality of life - Ben’s transformation is an example of what can be achieved.
I am one of many parents who have no confidence or trust in Beds children Services. In Ben’s case (and countless others) they have demonstrated a complete lack of understanding and empathy, their sole purpose is to cause misery and despair for those children and their families who are made vulnerable by severe disability and an uncaring authority. It is my sincere hope that those officers responsible for this appalling situation are sacked or at the very least not employed by the new unitary authority that comes into effect next year, anyone who supports them is not fit to hold public office.
The £250,000 cost of care at The Shires School is an average figure when compared with other independent residential special schools offering the same level of support and care. This begs the question of how Bedfordshire can provide the same level of support and care for £120,000? The simple and short answer is that it can’t. It doesn’t help to open the local paper and see that the local authority is spending thousands of pounds on hiring conference rooms, is this really what public service is about?
Apart from the inadequacy of the provision, Ben’s case raises important questions of law. As the Haslam family barrister, John Friel makes clear,
“Either we have a voluntary system or we impose it. If you impose it one would normally go through family court proceedings. So, as this is the first situation in which this has arisen … I think this is objectionable, both morally and politically.”
John Friel’s point is that children are usually taken into care either because the parents are failing their child or because they voluntarily opt for local authority care as being in the best interest of their child. In this case the Haslams are clearly not bad parents. And they are not being offered a choice. They are being coerced into placing Ben into care. The Family Court has not decided that Ben would be better off in care. In fact the Family Court has not even been involved. According to Bedfordshire, the SENDIST tribunal upheld the Haslam’s appeal “on a technicality.” So, presumably, the High Court overturned the SENDIST decision on a similar “technicality.” This whole case has been decided, not with reference to Ben’s best interests, but with reference to arcane interpretations of the workings of English case law.
I agree with John Friel. This is morally and politically objectionable.
EDIT:
I have just carried out a brief edit to remove some garbled code that came with the cut and paste comments from the BBC website and made it look as if I am a Bedfordshire parent. I am not. But my experience in Cumbria and that of many other parents I have met in the course of my NAS activities suggests that Bedfordshire is not the only authority that tries to shoehorn children into existing resources rather than tailoring resources to meet individual needs.
I am familiar with the argument that council budgets are already under a lot of pressure and they have to make best use of resources. But wasting resources on inadequate provision and pretending it is in the best interests of the child is both a false economy and a falsehood perpetrated on families who struggle with disability and the taxpayers who have to foot the bill.
And, as Kristina has noted in her blog on this subject, parents in the USA face similar conflicts. Sharon has blogged this as well and Madeline provides an interesting link to a story by Sarah Spiller, the reporter in the Ben Haslam story. She is an autism parent herself and had to battle through the courts to get proper provision for her child. And so it goes on.
