Tim Doherty

Scottish affairs

[Tim Doherty @Tim_ODoherty]

Half of all 2002/3-born Welsh children were granted SEN provision. However, against a backdrop of compounding dysfunction in Scotland and England, Wales turned the ship around.

How 🏴󠁧󠁢󠁷󠁬󠁳󠁿 grasped the nettle and fixed its special needs system: a comprehensive summary.

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[max tempers @maxtempers]

Onward don't seem to recognise that half of all Welsh children have special needs! Cut the education system some slack.

[Tim Doherty @Tim_ODoherty]

@ScoGreenLibDems @scotlibdems You came last

[Tim Doherty @Tim_ODoherty]

Last year I pointed to what 🏴󠁧󠁢󠁷󠁬󠁳󠁿 had done to cut back ALN numbers and what 🏴󠁧󠁢󠁳󠁣󠁴󠁿 and 🏴󠁧󠁢󠁥󠁮󠁧󠁿 could learn from it.

Today I turn to a case study in 🏴󠁧󠁢󠁳󠁣󠁴󠁿 itself: Aberdeenshire.

A long-ish blog post on the changes which saw them cut their ASN rate from 48% to 38%:

https://t.co/6ZcPuuGEaN

[Tim Doherty @Tim_ODoherty]

Last year I pointed to what 🏴󠁧󠁢󠁷󠁬󠁳󠁿 had done to cut back ALN numbers and what 🏴󠁧󠁢󠁳󠁣󠁴󠁿 and 🏴󠁧󠁢󠁥󠁮󠁧󠁿 could learn from it.

Today I turn to a case study in 🏴󠁧󠁢󠁳󠁣󠁴󠁿 itself: Aberdeenshire.

A long-ish blog post on the changes which saw them cut their ASN rate from 48% to 38%:

https://t.co/6ZcPuuGEaN

[Joe Allen @Joe___Allen]

Another example of the weirdness of the politics of ALN.

Welsh Lab pushing for more education spending going to ALN despite a 58% drop since 18/19 in number of relevant pupils as a result of their own reforms.

Real spending up 34% in that time and approaching £1bn per year.

[Tim Doherty @Tim_ODoherty]

@aodanhill @tompainebones Yes. Wales's electorate as at the 2026 election was 2.4m - almost one million below the estimated population of 3.2m.

[Tim Doherty @Tim_ODoherty]

@BrianBengal @warriorbadger @IpsosScotland Why are you denying that this was a Scotland-specific poll? No voters from outside Scotland were asked. It's the Scottish branch of Ipsos.

[Tim Doherty @Tim_ODoherty]

@BrianBengal @warriorbadger @IpsosScotland It's a poll of Scottish voters

[Tim Doherty @Tim_ODoherty]

@BrianBengal @warriorbadger @IpsosScotland It is not a UK-wide poll

[Tim Doherty @Tim_ODoherty]

I honestly can't believe how selfish it is for Anas Sarwar to think he should still be leader of Scottish Labour.

[Tim Doherty @Tim_ODoherty]

@Joe___Allen @rcolvile Yes, very complex picture. I did a counter-thread on the problems with the reforms - already out of date, sadly - which got a fraction of the attention the main one did... I suppose it's not as good a story!

I'll post it here:

https://t.co/kR0DSpkQlp

[Tim Doherty @Tim_ODoherty]

In the original thread I was cautious not to make the link that "headline SEN has gone down, therefore outcomes are better" (if I could write it again, I wouldn't have said that the "special needs system was fixed" but that the recording of cases/overrepresentation of SEN had).

[Joe Allen @Joe___Allen]

Wales has a fascinating story on SEN reform (@Tim_ODoherty and @rcolvile have written on this previously).

But reality of it is complex.

New Audit Wales report confirms that while numbers of ALN/SEN numbers have dropped significantly post-reforms, spending has continued to balloon.

> In 2018 22% of Welsh pupils had SEN provision. Reforms came in 2021. By 2025 that number was down to 9.5%
> Less than half the equivalent number in England. Scotland much higher again.
> Despite this fall in pupils covered, real terms SEN spend in Wales is up *34%* over the same period.
> Audit Wales estimates annual cost is approaching £1bn and adds this is "not the full picture".

So ALN/SEN provision now accounts for 3-4% of total Welsh Government spend.

[Tim Doherty @Tim_ODoherty]

@Joe___Allen Interesting to see he's improved. Saw bits of the first one + bits of the debate through the campaign and always thought ap Iorwerth was very clumsy at responding to any sort of question. "What does rural resilience mean? It means... rural... resilience".

[Tim Doherty @Tim_ODoherty]

57% of the Scottish respondents saying 81-100% are non-specialist and non-specialist-within-mainstream teachers. This is against 81% in NI. Ie, 15% of regular mainstream classes.

[Tim Doherty @Tim_ODoherty]

27% of Scottish classes have ASN rates of 81-100%.

[Tim Doherty @Tim_ODoherty]

@ferniator My point is that exact representativeness has never been definitely argued to be better (or more important) than eg viability of a Parliament per Lascelles, which IS constitutionally conventional - and parliament is a national body aimed at forming a national government.

[Tim Doherty @Tim_ODoherty]

@ferniator Why is proportion of votes a better metric than (say) change in vote, or something else? We can measure lots of things in elections. Why not say we start with X no. of seats for a party and take ones off - like old negative marking?

I'm not making a practical case for this, BTW.

[Tim Doherty @Tim_ODoherty]

@sjejsjejd Yes, 13. SNP were at 10. They won 5 and 9 respectively.

Changes: -McMurdock, -Lowe to 3. +Pochin, +Kruger, +Rosindell, +Braverman, +Jenrick to 8.

SNP lost Flynn and Gethins after their election to Holyrood - dual mandates are no longer allowed. So 7, falling just below Reform.

[Tim Doherty @Tim_ODoherty]

It took 679 days, but the exit poll came true in the end: Reform UK (8 seats) have more MPs than the SNP (7 seats).