How it Started
In July of 2018, a group of Bristol parents took Bristol City Council to the High Court to challenge cuts the local authority had made to its High Needs Block. The parents were successful, with the cuts ruled illegal in August 2018. None of this action was anything to do with me.
In September 2018, a Golden Motion was brought to Full Council by the Liberal Democrats – moved by Councillor Tim Kent. This called for Cabinet to report to next Full Council with an action plan to ‘restore funding to the High Needs Block. It should also include a new plan for deficit recovery that does not involve reductions to the High Needs Block.’
The motion was passed.
In this meeting, I made my very first public statement in a council meeting, talking about how Send failures had impacted on my children.
Bristol Parent Carers
In October 2018, I joined Bristol Parent Carers (BPC) – the Parent Carer Forum for the city. Along with a friend, I set up a support group in south Bristol. Although the support group fell under the banner of BPC, me and a second person secured funding independently through the Quartet Foundation. It was not funded by Bristol City Council, nor BPC at that point. The forum wanted a group set up in the south but was unable to fund it. This remained the case until well into the Covid era of 2020 and that specific funding ran out. The group was then funded by BPC.
One Thursday each month during term time, I would go to the venue in south Bristol. I sat and chatted with other parent carers. We signposted people to services. There was a representative from the Carers Support Centre there. Occasionally, by invitation, Bristol City Council staff. Each month, Supportive Parents – the city’s SENDIASS service which is now known as Send And You – would give parents advice about matters relating to Special Educational Needs and Disabilities (Send). At times, one of us had to correct advice that had been given, particularly as advice at times seemed to favour the local authority (LA).
Each month I would hear horror stories from desperate families. Every time you thought you’d heard The Worst Story, you never had. There would always be new horrors to hear. Some of the things I heard that had happened to children haunt me years later.
The whole Send system was in utter disarry. It was around this time I made an Education Health Care Needs Assessment (EHCNA) request. It would be the first request for my daughter and the second request for my son. My daughter’s EHCP took 50 weeks to get. My son’s 46 weeks.
My son’s EHCNA had previously been turned down in 2016, a time the local authority was failing to use the legal test as specified in the Children’s and Families Act 2014
Parent Carer Forums are supposed to work in conjunction with LAs to represent the parent carer voice in the co-production of services. They receive a grant from the Department for Education to do this work. One PCF in each LA is recognised by charity Contact.
It was my opinion at the time that this iteration of the city’s PCF wasn’t coproducing effectively and things needed to change. But, change wasn’t welcome because there was a stance that “we have always done it this way”.
I remained a support group volunteer. I would never have been allowed into tea and biscuits meetings. A friend described the forum at this point as ‘nodding dogs’ which was highly accurate. Any attempt to broaden the reach through new technologies or reaching more families was shot down.
Send Protest 2019
In May 2019, Send families held a protest on College Green outside of the council house as part of SEND National Crisis. It was a day of Send action across England.
A series of speeches took place from Send campaigners, councillors and other Bristol educators.
As part of the national media coverage, a news crew from Five came to my home for an interview. They then followed us through the morning and at the Send protest.
The day culminated with a group of Send protestors taking to the foyer of the Council House calling for action.
Bristol Send Inspection by Ofsted and the CQC
In September 2019, Bristol had its Send inspection. A join Send inspection looks into how well a local area supports children and young people with Send.
As part of this process, a meeting was held at the Council House for parents and carers to come along and have their say about the city’s Send services.
Prior to the start of the meeting, the then Executive Director of People Jacqui Jensen and new Director of Education Alison Hurley, paused to look at who the assembled parents were waiting to go in.
There was around 40-50 parents in attendance at the meeting. We were asked not to reveal what was said during the meeting, but it was a shocker. Parents were crying, families were in crisis and emotions were running very high. One horror story after another was told. Not one positive thing was said. One of my own children sat behind my chair. The meeting took place during school hours but because they were not getting the Send provision needed, they were in the process of falling out of education entirely.
In November of that year, the result of the inspection was ready with a delay upon its release due to the election period.
It said:
The inspection raises significant concerns about the effectiveness of the local area.
The local area is required to produce and submit a Written Statement of Action to Ofsted that explains how the local area will tackle the following areas of significant weakness:
◼ the lack of accountability of leaders at all levels, including school leaders
◼ the inconsistencies in the timeliness and effectiveness of the local area’s arrangements for the identification and assessment of children and young people with SEND
◼ the dysfunctional EHC plan process, and inadequate quality of EHC plans
◼ the underachievement and lack of inclusion of children and young people with SEND, including the high rates of persistent absenteeism and fixed-term exclusions
◼ the fractured relationships with parents and carers, lack of co-production and variable engagement and collaboration
The fall out of the inspection hit the media. Because I was often Tweeting about the difficulties of securing Send provision, I was asked to speak on BBC Radio Bristol. On the morning of the coverage, I turned the radio on to hear it was the station’s leading story. A parent, they said, was calling for the Mayor to resign. I idly wondered who that was until I heard my own voice and realised it was me. I’d completely forgotten saying it.
Extraordinary People Scrutiny Meeting
People Scrutiny Commission – which was responsible for the oversight of the city’s Send services – held an extraordinary meeting on 03 February 2020. This was to review the Ofsted and CQC Send inspection report.
A closed session also took place on the same day, which called in Send experts for panel discussion.
Around the same time period, there were several meetings run by Bristol City Council as part of the effort to make improvements.
I attended two of these.
The first had parents, local authority staff, health and social care in attendance. It was a bit of a mess. You can’t move forward without even beginning to acknowledge how badly families were experiencing services. It was a waste of time.
A second meeting I attended spent about an hour discussing how to put together a leaflet about EHCPs. This was a spectacular waste of time. Funnily enough, no such leaflet emerged.
At this point, Covid hit. Despite the rest of the world managing to cope with the move to digital, absolutely nothing happened with coproduction.
New Chair for BPC
In April 2020, the chair of BPC stepped back to go on a 12 month ‘sabbatical’. He never returned. At this point, an interim independent chair was recruited for the forum. Stuart Hall – who was also manager of the Wiltshire PCF – formally took over the role on 01 May 2020.
Stuart carefully listened to feedback from forum members and democratically set about implementing positive change, with a strong focus on improving co-production and the parent voice.
Around this time, Stuart suggested that I join one of the co-production meetings – Time For Change – which was looking at redesigning the EHCP process. Much of this seemed focused on the look of an EHCP.
During the summer of 2020, discussion took place about improving the structure and operation of the forum by moving to a community interest company. This was agreed by vote.
As the forum was still going to recruit for a paid chair position, the Contact regional advisor arranged for a Contact Associate to support with the recruitment process.
During this time, I was unhappy with the way that Stuart was being treated by some of the older members of the forum. It was my view that he was being bullied by forum members who did not want to make any changes. Some of the meetings were deeply unpleasant.
The Contact Associate who came to work with the forum to make sure the recruitment process was followed correctly and legally instead set about undoing the positive work that Stuart Hall had achieved. It felt like the whole thing was being rolled back to “the way we’ve always done things.” This was an annoying refrain that would repeat over and over again.
In January 2021, I emailed Stuart Hall to tell him I would be leaving the Parent Carer Forum as a ‘facilitator’.
In my letter I wrote:
‘I was really hopeful that the direction of coproduction in Bristol was finally moving in a positive direction. But I feel there are just constant blocks from some people who are not willing to accept change or any will to take on board feedback raised through Ofsted.
‘Everything that has been achieved in the last year is slowly starting to roll back and there is a dogged determination to ensure that candidates from outside Bristol should not apply, which feels targeted. Well it is targeted.
‘I have already experienced this personally when Nick was the chairperson, and he managed to alienate a significant number of Bristol’s parent carers as well as blocking me from attending meetings. All because we wanted to make the forum more accessible and move forward with the kind of digital engagement which is now taking place.
‘I am actually finding the whole experience quite stressful and frustrating. This was especially so in this morning’s meeting, where we are still going over things that were being raised as far back as 2018 but when the ‘right’ person mentions it, it is acted on.
‘I also don’t understand why the new constitution is a mystery and people are now claiming to not understand what a CIC is despite many meetings and discussions and votes. The whole AGM is now unfortunately a bit of a sham as a result.
‘This means we will continue to be tied to the Carers Centre and with Supportive Parents as stakeholders. I feel strongly that some of the people involved in one of these organisations are also unwilling to want long-term change and backs the most stubborn member of the Bristol Parent Carer forum resisting it.
‘I find the whole thing far too ‘political’ and backward thinking and these people are not taking into consideration the current needs of the city’s parent carers in a climate where Send is a massively contentious issue and continues to destroy the lives and families of children and young people.
‘I do appreciate all your efforts to calmly and neutrally push ahead with improvements and long term strategic direction, and would genuinely hope you will consider applying for the role because the forum does desperately need your input.’
I still continued to co-run the monthly support group and continued to do so until the summer of 2022.
Around the summer of 2021, Stuart Hall stepped back from his role of interim chair, although I am unaware of the reasons why. I suspect many people across all sevices underestimate the dynamics of Bristol, that people in the city do not tolerate nonsense affecting its residents or vulnerable people.
BPC attempted to recruit for a paid CEO after Hall left, with funds coming from Education, Health and Social Care. With only a rumoured two applications for the position and division on what the money should be funded on, the money was withdrawn and did not happen.