ABSTRACT
When exclusions take place it is well established that there is considerable distress to the children, their families and also the schools concerned (see, for example, Blyth and Milner, 1993; Bourne et al., 1994; Cohen and Hughes, 1994). A neglected area of study has been that of financial costs of exclusion. These are considerable for what is a vastly inferior, inadequate educational experience for the child. The ‘cost shunting’ that results from exclusion means that other parts of the education system and other services, particularly social services, bear the cost of supporting the excluded pupil. The claim explored in this chapter is that the aggregate cost to the totality of services is greater than if the child had been maintained in school. Inter-agency collaboration may be necessary since many excluded children and young people live in families experiencing difficulties. Maintaining children in school may have beneficial long-term consequences for the family as well as the child and it is certainly the case that permanent exclusion is a deeply damaging experience (see Cullingford and Morrison, and de Pear and Garner in this volume).
