A handful of Oxbridge ponces from management consultants Newton Europe have arrived at the Counts Louse to cut £65m from Children’s Services in exchange for £7.5m.

Among the things the overpaid twits will be working on is the time it’s taking the council to provide EHCP plans to SEND children. It’s currently taking the council an average of 51 weeks to supply a plan. The legal requirement is 20 weeks and the council is delivering just three per cent of plans to that timescale.

In late 2023, around 47 per cent of EHCPs were delivered on time. This changed after February 2024 when former Children’s Services boss, Asher “The Slasher” Craig cancelled the council’s £5.5m non-statutory top-up budget that funded SEND children in schools without the need for an EHCP plan.

Without this funding, more children are, predictably, going through the EHCP process. This cut was made as part of a Dept of Education’s (DfE) ‘Delivering Better Value’ (DBV) plan for SEND. 

So, who got a £19.5m contract from the DfE to develop the DBV programme? Please step forward, er, Newton Europe, who are now charging us £7.5m to clear up their own shit.

You couldn’t make this stuff up.