WHEN Reform UK won control of Derbyshire County Council in 2024, they inherited a council whose services had been hollowed out by eight years of Conservative austerity. Nowhere was this truer than in the teams that assess children with special educational needs and disabilities (Send).

As part of the children’s social services, Send is a speciality within a speciality for social workers. Unlike child protection, which can result in high-profile cases that embarrass local authorities, Send work had previously been low-key and out of the limelight. This made the Send department ripe for cuts when money was tight.

Even when a critical Ofsted report found “significant concerns” in the Derbyshire service in September 2024, the issue struggled to get noticed. An action plan was produced by the council, but it contained no significant extra funding. Instead, staff were pressured to work harder, with many going off sick.

They contacted Unison Derbyshire for support, but attempts to engage the council though were unsuccessful, and building a collective action was slow, as so many staff — especially experienced staff — were leaving for other councils.

As the anniversary of the Ofsted report approached, the only comment on the issue by Reform UK council leader Alan Graves was to tell the BBC that the problem was one of “overdiagnosis,” and that schools were encouraging parents to apply for help they didn’t need. He also said, in a separate statement, that the council was “overstaffed.” Meanwhile, the Send assessment backlog continued.

Then, two things happened that moved the campaign forwards. Firstly, Derbyshire County Council appointed the very experienced Gary Saul from Leeds City Council as interim head of Send.

An outsider, he was able to tell DCC they could not turn around their failing team without more staff — a lot more staff. Then on November 3 2025 there was a National Day of Action by the campaign group The Send Sanctuary UK called Every Pair Tells a Story.

In Derbyshire, this saw mothers bringing empty pairs of shoes to County Hall, along with very personal message of how failures in the system were affecting them and their children. It was a powerful record of the council’s failure.

Unison Derbyshire supported this protest, and afterward we joined with these parents, and sympathetic politicians, to create Send Action Derbyshire.

The pressure worked. On December 4 2025, the cabinet of Derbyshire County Council agreed a £1.3 million increase in spending, with the money to come from reserves, for the Send assessment teams. This represented an increase in front-line staff of about 50 per cent. So much for being “overstaffed.”

Hayley Chapman, whose son is waiting for an assessment, said: “On a personal level, the decision brings hope. Like so many families, we’ve been living with the uncertainty and frustration that brings. I’m so proud to have been part of the Derbyshire team at the Every Pair Tells a Story event last month. I’d like to be seen simply as a parent who refuses to give up — someone who speaks out not just for my own child, but for every family waiting for the support their children deserve.”