Merseyside Send Support Network

Young people in Knowsley are invited to an event to hear how Knowsley Council is making decisions affecting local young people. If you're interested and aged 11 - 18 (up to 25 with SEND), drop into MYA Our Place on Longview Drive, Huyton, L36 6EG, on Wednesday 15 July between 5.30pm to 8pm
Find out more here https://orlo.uk/OViCH

Our Senior Solicitor, Kate Cox, has written a new article to help explain the annual review process during a SEND Tribunal contents appeal and what it could mean for you.

If you're navigating an annual review while appealing the contents of an Education, Health and Care (EHC) plan, understanding the process is essential.

Read more: https://www.ipsea.org.uk/News/annual-reviews-during-tribunal-contents-appeals-can-las-still-issue-amended-ehc-plans

If you need support with an annual review or SEND Tribunal appeal, please contact us: https://www.ipsea.org.uk/Pages/Category/service-overview

One law for parents. No law for the state.

When a court orders a parent to act in a child’s interests and they fail to do so, the state can imprison them.

When a court orders a local authority to act in a child’s interests and it fails to do so… the state does nothing at all.

Worse. This state is *so* comfortable in its impunity that it isn’t even being counted.

Families were not overwhelmed by a feeling.
They were made powerless- in some cases, deliberately, and by design- by authorities acting unlawfully, and by a Department that has watched it happen.
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Today, under increasing pressure about the unlawful, harmful conduct of Local Authorities, this Minister offered platitudes. Then reminded the public how hard this is for Local Authorities.

Minister. System strain and conduct are *not* the same thing. This Department keeps answering the first to avoid the second.

System strain is real. But strain is not what breaks families. What breaks them is conduct… the deliberate use, (and knowing misuse), of power against children who have a legal right to protection from it.

That is where the deepest trauma lives.
That is where trust is destroyed.
This is where children and families are broken.

And it has a name:

Misconduct.

A local authority that knowingly ignores a statutory duty, or worse, a judge-issued, legally binding Tribunal order about that same child? Where continued failure to comply is leading to ongoing and escalating harm? Our state is so confident in its impunity that it isn’t even counted.

We know. We asked.

Local authorities are documented to have systemically… and in some cases knowingly and deliberately, broken the law. Thousands of pages of evidence, submitted to Parliament, show this has caused catastrophic harm to children and to entire families.

Not friction.
Not delay.
Not administrative difficulties.

Harm.

And yet, these reforms still propose to expand those authorities’ powers, while vastly narrowing the judicial oversight that exposed the conduct in the first place.

So Minister, no amount of platitudes, soft lighting or sofa interviews explains that away.

A department that has seen the evidence and still chooses to legislate away the mechanism that surfaced it is not a bystander to the harm that follows.

It is a participant in it.

So our question is this:

Minister, when a parent ignores a court order about their child, they can go to prison. When a local authority wilfully ignores a Tribunal order about that same child, what happens?

We know what the evidence shows.
So does this Government.

The only question left is whether the Department will act… or wait to be compelled. We are ready for either.

Measure What Matters
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In 2024, Measure What Matters first began collecting evidence of what appeared to be serious maladministration and misconduct by local authorities in relation to their SEND duties. When our data analysis aligned with what families were reporting, we knew urgent action was needed.

At 100 testimonies, they were presented to the Secretary of State.

At 600, Chris Coghlan, MP first presented them to Parliament.

At 1,200, they were presented again… and shortly afterwards Parliament debated them.

Our work with ITV has now seen a whistleblower corroborate what families had already made known. And Chris Coghlan MP’s tireless parliamentary representations on these issues mean this record is simply undeniable.

The record now runs to thousands of pages of testimonial evidence, across more than 140 local authorities in England. And it exists solely because thousands of brave, determined, broken families were willing to say, on the record, what was done to them.

If you have not yet shared your experience, you can do so here:

https://survey.yourviewsyourvoice.org/

Finally. You are being heard.

When Your Neurodivergent Child Becomes an Adult: Navigating the Transition to Adulthood Together Explore the realities of supporting neurodivergent children to adulthood, sharing insights, lived experience, & practical guidance.

Petition: Protect legal right to support for children with SEND I believe that the Government’s proposed SEND reforms could limit EHCPs, weaken legal rights, replace individual plans with packages, reduce appeals, and remove school choice. In my view, children could be left without the support they need as a result.

🚨BREAKING NEWS🚨

Disability Rights UK issues our statement on the Timms Review interim report, which was published today.

"With the hostile political backdrop, Disabled people are fully justified in being concerned about the scope of the Review recommendations"

Full statement 👇
https://www.disabilityrightsuk.org/news/dr-uk-statement-timms-review-interim-report

The Government thinks the SEND system is broken because of the LAW. It's not. It's broken because councils don't FOLLOW it. Fixing the wrong problem won't make the real problem go away...Read the article by I.P.S.E.A Policy Manager, Catriona Moore on THE SOCR WEBSITE, https://saveourchildrensrights.org.uk/2026/07/send-law-not-problem-councils-flouting-must-tackled/
Councils routinely make unlawful decisions on EHC Plans — we know this because the SEND Tribunal finds in favour of parents almost all the time. But it doesn’t stop them; they do it again and again. Same councils. Same breaches. No accountability. So why is the Government choosing to ignore this endemic law-breaking?