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May 24, 2026 • Blog

50,000 Reasons to Be Proud: Celebrating Wiltshire's Bikeability Milestone

Wiltshire Council's Bikeability programme recently certified its 50,000th participant, marking a milestone that underscores the initiative's vital role in teaching children tangible life skills for road safety. Peer-reviewed research demonstrates that this training correlates with lower rates of serious road injuries, equipping young people with protective awareness that lasts a lifetime, yet such practical safety measures remain overshadowed by other safeguarding priorities.

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May 16, 2026 • Blog

The gap we are not going to accept

The author acknowledges that disadvantaged students in Wiltshire schools remain troublingly behind their peers, with achievement gaps persisting or worsening despite this being a national crisis. However, refusing to accept excuses while embracing local responsibility, the cabinet member argues that strategic investment in proven educational interventions—not merely increased funding—offers the only viable path to finally closing this stubborn divide.

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May 10, 2026 • Blog

Planning SEND in the dark: how can councils invest when central government won't show its hand?

Local authorities face an impossible planning crisis for Special Educational Needs provision as central government constantly shifts policy goals despite clear evidence that demand is surging—with Education, Health and Care Plans rising 10.8% annually to reach 638,700 children. While Department for Education forecasts predict continued growth to nearly 920,000 by 2040 and cumulative deficits hitting £14 billion, officials paradoxically demand that local authorities reduce reliance on these plans, creating an unsustainable contradiction between statistical reality and government expectations.

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May 6, 2026 • Blog

The Post-16 transport puzzle: doing the right thing in a system that makes it hard

The author defends Wiltshire's revised Post-16 travel assistance policy despite widespread consultation concerns, highlighting the contradictory legal framework that removes statutory transport entitlements for 16- to 18-year-olds with EHCPs—even though their needs remain unchanged—while maintaining them for younger and older students. While acknowledging that transport can be specified in EHCPs in exceptional circumstances, they emphasize that this discretionary gap creates systemic frustrations, particularly in rural counties where the conversation about SEND transport remains unresolved.

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May 4, 2026 • SEND

The Children's Wellbeing and Schools Act 2026

The Children's Wellbeing and Schools Act 2026 enacts the most significant reset of children's social care and education law in a generation, reforming child protection, kinship care, home education, and school standards. Although Royal Assent has been granted, most provisions await regulations and commencement orders, with key duties such as multi-agency protection teams scheduled for 2027. Lead Members must scrutinize implementation readiness and secure resourcing immediately, as the Act places nearly all operational duties and costs on local authorities.

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Dec 15, 2025 • Safeguarding

National Protocol to prevent the unnecessary criminalisation of children in care

Welcoming the Government’s commitment to preventing criminalization among care-experienced children—over half of whom currently face convictions by age 24 compared to just 13% of their peers—the author nonetheless warns that ambition alone is insufficient. Without substantial funding for local authorities to provide trauma-informed support and mentoring, these vital reforms risk remaining empty aspirations that fail to protect vulnerable youth.

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Sep 21, 2025 • SEND

The SEND Reform Challenge: A Call for Compassionate Realism

A senior Wiltshire Council official argues that Education Health and Care Plans (EHCPs) have become a financially unsustainable false promise, legally formalizing support that schools already provide rather than creating new resources while contributing to a £4 billion national deficit. The piece contends that the bureaucratic burden of processing applications and defending tribunal decisions diverts critical time and money from frontline services, ultimately failing to deliver the meaningful outcomes families expect despite the immense administrative expense.

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