Parents urge councillors to apologise over special needs comments

Councillors Brian Hammersley (L) and Jeff Morgan (R) spoke during an SEND discussion in January

Three Tory councillors in Warwickshire are facing calls to apologise for comments about children with special educational needs.

The remarks were made in a meeting about the rising cost of council support, prompting anger from parents.

Councillor Jeff Morgan questioned whether some children receiving funding were "just really badly behaved".

Councillor Brian Hammersley asked if "something in the water" was increasing special needs cases.

A third councillor, Clare Golby, asked whether the increase in cases could be linked to social media sites where "families are swapping tips on how to get their children diagnosed".

Parent carer groups say the comments at a meeting last month were offensive, with some urging the Conservative councillors to apologise and take a special needs awareness course.

The BBC has approached the councillors involved for comment.

Ms Golby said she did not wish to comment, and the other two councillors are yet to respond.

Some parent carers have complained to Warwickshire County Council after the remarks came to wider attention on social media last week.

The authority confirmed it had received a number of complaints following the meeting on 25 January.

"The council's monitoring officer is considering these complaints and it would be inappropriate to comment whilst that process is underway," a spokesperson said.

Ellie Costello, a co-ordinator with the SEND National Crisis campaign, told the BBC she was "shocked" by the comments, which she described as "discriminatory, stigmatising, ill-informed at best and harmful at worst".

She said she thought the councillors should resign "because these are the people who are meant to be representatives of the children and families in their communities".

Sarah Feeney, Labour group deputy leader on the county council and a parent carer, said she was "in disbelief" that fellow councillors could hold such views.

She said special needs training was necessary because "saying sorry without that understanding would mean nothing".

Growing demand

Councils have a legal duty to provide special needs support to eligible pupils, including those with a education, health and care (EHC) plan up to the age of 25.

But local authorities across the country say they are struggling to afford the spiralling costs of special educational needs and disabilities (SEND) services as demand grows.

Warwickshire County Council expects to overspend on its budget for SEND children with high needs by £17.5m in this financial year.

There are more than 15,500 SEND children in Warwickshire's state-funded schools, about 17.4% of the student population in the county.

The council says the number of SEND children has increased by 37% over the last five years.

In last month's meeting, Mr Hammersley asked: "Does anyone know why this is increasing so rapidly? Is it something in the water?

"Why are there so many people now jumping out with these needs? Where were they in the past when I was at school? I never heard of SEND [at that time]."

Later in the session, Mr Morgan suggested rising demand might not necessarily mean there was "genuine need".

"I don't know how you do that apart from being tougher, asking more penetrating questions, not automatically accepting the plea of a mother saying that little Willy has ADHD when in actual fact little Willy is just really badly behaved and needs some form of strict correction," he said.

Councillor Clare Golby asked whether "parenting" was an issue to be looked at

Councillor Clare Golby said one of the questions she had was "what comes down to parenting, and what comes down to actually SEND issues?".

On the use of Facebook by SEND parents, Mrs Golby said: "Perhaps that is something that is informing this sort of route to get more people into the request of diagnoses in the first place."

In her complaint, Ms Costello said the councillors' comments may have amounted to discrimination under the Equality Act and asked for them to be investigated.

Labour MP Matt Western said he would be writing to the leader of the council, Izzi Seccombe, to "express my serious concern over these dreadful comments".

The controversy comes after one mum told the BBC a "fear culture" is stopping parents of special needs children in Warwickshire speaking up over potential cuts to their school transport.