Special needs row councillors should quit - dad

Mike Fletcher from Studley said the comments by the councillors were "belittling"

A father has called on three councillors to resign after complaints against their views on special educational needs and disabilities (SEND) were dismissed.

Jeff Morgan, Brian Hammersley and Clare Golby were cleared of breaching Warwickshire County Council's code of conduct over contributions to a debate in January.

Mike Fletcher, whose 10-year-old son was recently diagnosed with dyslexia, called their comments "belittling".

He voiced concerns on whether the support his son would receive at secondary school would be adequate.

Council leader Izzi Seccombe said the authority had brought in several new measures including extra training for councillors.

In the meeting, Mr Morgan questioned whether some children put forward for assessments were "just really badly behaved" and in need of "some form of strict correction" during a debate about the cost pressures that had led to overspending for local authorities around the country.

Mr Hammersley asked whether the rise demand was down to "something in the water" and Ms Golby referred to social media pages where "families are swapping tips on how to get their children diagnosed".

The investigation, led by a external legal professional, found Mr Morgan and Mr Hammersley had been entitled to make comments, although disrespectful, under freedom of speech protections, while Ms Golby's words were not deemed to have been disrespectful.

'Positions of trust'

Mr Fletcher, from Studley, said: "It is hard to put into words my feelings about how Warwickshire County Council’s monitoring officer can exonerate the three county councillors' behaviour at the children and young people’s overview and scrutiny committee held in January this year."

He said the three were "elected into positions of trust" to represent the people of Warwickshire.

He said: "Rather than showing any compassion or support to families struggling with special needs they chose to ridicule and belittle the needs of our children and the efforts of parents fighting a lack of funding or understanding of genuine need."

He said the grounds of the dismissal have only "proved" that the individuals were not fit to represent the communities they served.

Izzi Seccombe, leader of Warwickshire County Council, said the authority had put in place "a number of processes"

He added: "I am disheartened, thinking about whether any party intends to solve this matter and feel that SEND gets overlooked with other educational matters.

"I would like to call on the three county councillors to resign and for all political parties to commit to fully fund SEND assessments and subsequent needs at the general election."

Council leader Izzi Seccombe said the authority had put in place "a number of processes".

She added the most recent was "all councillors should be undertaking a programme of training and development to understand the impact of words and what they mean and how they can be interpreted by people".

Ms Seccombe said she would ask parents of children "with special education needs and carers... to trust in Warwickshire".

She stated the process that had resulted in the findings this week was "entirely separate from the delivery of SEND provision" within the county.

"We have taken very seriously the role of our families and carers, what they say to us...it is really important that we continue to deliver services that are appropriate," she added.

"This whole episode has been very damaging and disappointing to everybody concerned, really everybody concerned.

"But we have learnt and [I] absolutely have said throughout all of it that we need to learn because you never stop learning and this has been a time for us to learn [that] language matters."

The BBC tried to contact the councillors on Friday. All three have already apologised.