Carrie Grant

I mean, EHCPs do cost money.

You have to administrate them.

You have to get children assessed.

But once they've been assessed the first time, often they're not reassessed by professionals for years, sometimes ever.

So the real cost of an EHCP is in the provision, in the help that you give to a child.

So the only reason to take that legal right away is if you don't want to fund that support anymore.

And what you've said is absolutely correct.

If you fail children, it does cost you more money long term.

But no one's ever looking long term.

They're always looking at the next five years, the next election.

So they're thinking we can make it look like we've saved a lot of money here.

And by the next election, we're not really going to see the extent of the fallout, probably.

It will take a bit longer than that.

And a lot of the things that this government has been very focused on, you know, the number of children and young people who are out of work.

or not in education training or employment, the number of young people on disability benefits.

This is very directly linked to how much support they get in education.

And for some children, it's the difference between them needing one-to-one carers in a residential placement for decades, for the rest of their entire lives, or potentially living in supported housing with carers who pop in

you know, a couple of times a day.

The cost difference there, even if you want to just ignore the human element of it completely and just look at costs, that is not a good use of money.

All disabled children have a different level of potential that they can reach with the right support.