A vote to invest in new special needs school places was pulled by Bristol City Council chiefs at the last minute. The council’s cabinet was due to give their approval to a major new investment in the city’s special educational needs provision.
But details of what the investment included are currently unclear, as published reports were suddenly removed from the council’s website. The vote is now due to be held in September instead, when more details of the investment should become available. According to the council, “changing cost environments” meant the vote had to be postponed, but opposition councillors have pointed out flaws in the reports.
Green Councillor Christine Townsend said: “[Cabinet papers] state there will be reports to the Department for Education. Given that the final report to the Department for Education happened in July 2021 … this is no longer the case and this part of the paper seems significantly out of date, and no longer fit for purpose.”
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Another aspect is council chiefs were to face urgent questions from members of the public about the social media surveillance scandal, revealed last month. Leaked emails showed council staff monitoring parents of children with special educational needs, who were criticising the council. A cross-party group of councillors are calling for an external inquiry.
During the cabinet meeting, on Tuesday, August 8, Bristol mayor Marvin Rees said: “We have taken the decision to postpone this paper to our next cabinet meeting [on September 6]. There will be no impact on any places offered for September 2022 and we remain on track to meet both our sufficiency duties as a local authority.
“My pledge is to bring on board 450 new specialist school places by 2024. However, the changing cost environments that we face mean we actually have to work through in some more detail some of the cost implications of this paper. We’ll bring it back when the work is completed in time for the next cabinet [meeting].”
It’s understood that the council is preparing an extensive communications plan to go alongside the investment decision, to counter any “reputational risk”. The plans include putting reactive lines in place to respond to any likely criticisms.
