how much £

[julie1]

does anyone no how much it costs to have a childs hors totaled up. my dd has 30 hours 1-1 support and im trying to find out how much that would cost our LA to pay for. thanks

[caci]

When I was working in mainstream school as an ISA about a year ago, I was getting paid about £9.00 per hour (take home) which means it was costing the LEA something like £12.00 an hour. I have NVQ3 and have several years experience, so my wage was probably at the top end of the pay scale, and I am close enough to London to get the equivilent of outer London weighting (I think).

 

On that basis, I think you are getting something like £13,600 a year

 

Is that any help ?

[Karen A]

Hi.I think it may depend on the qualification level of the TA required as some specialists may be payed more.

However Ben is funded about £10000 plus delegated funding which I was told would pay for about 15 hours.

We live in Inner London so pay would include an allowance for that.

Karen.

Edited February 27, 2010 by Karen A

[Sally44]

I think you can request the LEA to inform you under the freedom of information act - but i'm not 100% certain of that, and I don't know how to check that out. Maybe IPSEA would have some info on this via their helplline? This is something that was told to me by another mother but I can't guarantee I've remembered it correctly. What was happening was that the LEA were saying that the cost of the school the parents wanted was way over the support they currently received in an LEA maintained school and therefore it was the best use of their resources etc. So this parent asked the LEA for all their workings out under the abovementioned act. Maybe other posters have more knowledge about this.

But if a placement is down to costs it is important to see the LEAs calculations otherwise you cannot challenge them.

[julie1]

thanks everyone thats quite helpful, i will ask the LA for there workings out.

[Sally44]

thanks everyone thats quite helpful, i will ask the LA for there workings out.

 

When you get their workings out, check them via someone like IPSEA.

I would also check with IPSEA about the Freedom of Information Act BEFORE you ask the LEA for their costings. Because you are wanting specific details relating to your child from their file and not general criteria for working out costings. There maybe a difference.

 

If you have concerns about other things, this may be a good time to request everything on your child's file. But it all depends on what you need the costings for and whether additional info on her file maybe useful. If you ask for your child's file you should receive everything eg. notes, emails, notes of telecons, as well as letters. Sometimes you can find very useful information. But again depends on what you are trying to achieve as obviously once you have done this those involved maybe very careful about what they put on record. And NOW may not be a good time to let them know you know about access to information through the Freedom of Information Act. If you get my drift.

[lil_me]

For the cost of 1-1 support you need to add in hours they don't cover also, like lunch time most don't cover. If costing a childs full placement then you need to include some of the other costs within school, teaching, management etc. You could ask the school, my sons old school told me but I was a governor at the time so had access to most of the financial stuff anyway.

[julie1]

yes perhaps asking the school first would be a good idea. Dont want to rattle the LA too much right now.

[Kathryn]

Also check job ads in the local paper and/or the LEA website or local library - they usually put out regular bulletins covering all jobs in schools and you can check what rate they are offering.

 

K x

[daniels-mum]

I was at a tribunal hearing in Jan as the LA refused to issue a statement for my son, the SENCO was called as a witness for the LA and she said that full tme support would be in the region of £15000. Also there is the cost of any additional services such as SALT and OT which will have to be paid for from somewhere. I am not in London by the way, am in the North.

 

[Sally44]

And there is also transport costs. Which are quite significant. I know of a parent who managed to get ASD specific independent school named on the Statement on the understanding that they provided transport.

 

And as you say OT, SALT, EP involvement is all extra. When that is totalled up there is sometimes not alot of difference between LEA maintained and ASD specific independent. The difficulty is getting the input whilst in an LEA maintained school. As at annual reviews there is always the push to reduce the amount of professional input.