MY FIRST front bench appointment was in 2005, just after David Cameron had become leader of the Conservatives.

He made me Shadow Minister for Disabled People, a post that terrified me because of my lack of knowledge of the area which contrasted to his own very personal understanding as a result of his disabled son Ivan.

I set about understanding the issues and even presented a bill to parliament to simplify the benefits system for disabled people.

Many of my ideas have been adopted and the benefits system, while not perfect, is now much simpler to navigate.

But after doing a round-table with local families who have children with special educational needs (SEN), I discovered that one thing remains depressingly unchanged: the way our system makes families dealing with huge challenges spend so much energy fighting the authorities to get the support they need.

They want to focus love and attention on their child – but the processes they have to go through make them utterly exhausted.

A frequent complaint was that in order to get a SEN package, parents had to hire lawyers and take the local council to court, only to find the case would be settled a couple of days before a tribunal hearing.

Often when tribunals did make decisions no reasons were given, making it impossible to scrutinise or challenge the logic used.

Such families often face practical difficulties that are not necessarily the fault of the council, such as when a bus service to take children to Pond Meadow School in Guildford was recently cancelled at short notice because the operator handed back the contract.

I intervened and the issue appears to have been resolved but even then communication with the council was nothing like as easy as it should have been.

Overall the process for getting a support package was seen as over-adversarial and not focused enough on the children involved. But why?

Local government funding may be part of the story, which is partly why I have been campaigning for more funding for the social care system which of course covers children as well as adults.

So too may be administration or organisation, which is why I have asked for a meeting with Surrey County Council’s head of children’s services Rachel Wardell.

At any rate these families – under such huge pressure anyway – should not have to get into a court fight to get care they desperately need.