Dr Alan Marsh has more than 25 years’ experience working as a local authority Chartered Educational Psychologist (EP). He successfully combined his EP career with six years of study for a PhD in formula funding and special educational needs at the Open University. He was recently elected as a fellow of the British Psychological Society. He was seconded to the Department for Education to write the guidance document for the National Performance Framework for SEN in England, a prototype to the Local Authority Interactive Tool and the High Needs Local Authority Benchmarking Tool. Since retirement, he has continued to author articles as an independent researcher.