1 November (Part 1) - Chief Exec. says “Say sorry and put it right”
The inquest into Bexley Council’s SEN failures took up an hour and a half of
Committee time and to demonstrate that it was a serious matter it was well attended by non-Committee members too.
The sorry saga began at a Communities Scrutiny meeting in July, a meeting I decided not to go to after a long day in East Ham, I did however sit
and listen to the webcast at home and there was one bit I remember very well. That is Cabinet Member John Fuller telling the Committee how well the Council
had been doing with SEN transport even beating one pesky parent in Court. Unusually, that meeting was not reported here, however I did keep a recording of it.
Two weeks later
at a Full Council meeting the Labour Group pulled their rabbit from the hat; the Local Government Ombudsman did not agree with Councillor Fuller and
had ruled against Bexley several times. The Labour Group
issued a Press Release.
From there it is probably safe to ignore Tweedledee and Tweedledum’s Twitter attack, it was all
bluster and distortions as we have come to expect, and examine
this week’s inquest in greater detail.
The
meeting began immediately and without any of the usual Agenda preliminaries with
an apology from the Chief Executive Jackie Belton and a baptism of fire because
amazingly I have not heard her address a public Council meeting in her
previous seven months in office.
As stated elsewhere she was not in office at the critical time.
She offered “sincere apologies to the eight families who went to the Ombudsman
and for the way their transport needs were assessed and for not implementing the
LGO recommendations in a timely manner”. Three of the families had to return to the
Ombudsman before obtaining justice. “It was totally unacceptable, We got it wrong”.
Council Leader Teresa O’Neill said she didn’t know about the LGO cases and that
is one of the lessons that must be learned. She “was sorry about the impact it had on families”.
One of the parents addressed the Committee. Her son had been provided with
transport for three years but then she came up against a refusal. All her
enquiries received generic unsigned responses, no explanation was provided and
her son was transformed into a ‘she’. “All deadlines were missed and I was left
with no option but to go to the Ombudsman who found the Council at fault on 15th
January and gave them a month to issue a full apology and arrange a fresh appeal.”
Bexley Council failed to respond even after being chased five times.
When another apology date was missed, four more reminders fell on deaf ears.
Eventually an appeal outcome was received on 5th April well outside the LGO
timescale. It came with an assurance that her son’s ten months of transport
problems had not affected his education. There had been no consultation with his
mother and the Council felt it appropriate to criticise her for not sending a daughter to the nearest school.
(There was a very good reason for it.)
To add insult to injury Bexley Council told her that there was no further
recourse to Appeal. The LGO said that that advice was entirely incorrect. The
stress caused by Bexley Council’s contempt for the law put the mother in
hospital and she decided that her health was no longer good enough to pursue the case further.
She informed Bexley Council after which they said not another word. No sympathy,
no empathy, no regret for the problems they had caused. The mother is a School
Governor and knows that at no time did Bexley Council inform the school of what was going on.
Councillor Putson (Labour, Belvedere) asked the lady a question. “Was the action taken by the Council correct
and as recorded in the Agenda?” The mother said that the Agenda was not a
correct reflection of what happened.
Councillor Ogundayo (Labour, Thamesmead East) asked if help had been sought from elsewhere, politicians
perhaps. The parent said that David Evennett MP and Cabinet Member John Fuller
had both been notified but she “struggled to get a response”. David Evennett
passed on her email to the school “but no one from the Council ever contacted the school”.
Councillor Diment (Conservative, Sidcup) expressed his sympathy for what had happened and asked what
the situation was “in the new school year” but alas there could be no answer as
the mother had been refused transport for her son this year. As a Governor she
had heard that things were improved.
Councillor Perfect asked how she felt about the Council after finding herself
beaten down to the point she felt unable to pursue the appeal that the LGO said
she was entitled to. “Do you trust the Council now?”
“If the Council won’t listen to the Ombudsman we stand no chance as parents. The
Council’s response was an insult.”
Councillor Dourmoush (Conservative, Longlands) asked “What can the Council do for you?”
“Improve communication, show empathy and not treat children as numbers.
Recognise the stress involved in being an SEN parent. Start the process earlier
so that it is completed before schools close for the Summer. Every Summer
holiday is ruined by arranging transport. It is heartbreaking.”
The Council Officer in charge of SEN Transport, a Mr. Simon James, admitted
mistakes were made in his department right up to the 2018/19 academic year.
Among the mistakes were incorrect distance assessments, no explanations offered
to parents and no notification to the Cabinet Member. “Those mistakes will not
be repeated in the future.”
More children are being assisted and fewer complaints are now being made, none
to the Ombudsman. Among the improvements made are bringing the responsible staff
closer together with a single manager and improved training. The need for
parents to apply annually when circumstances had not changed had been abolished
and decisions would be made before the end of term.
Councillor Ogundayo asked why the issues with Local Government Ombudsman were
not made available to the meeting in July (when Councillor Fuller painted a rosy picture).
At the same meeting Cabinet Member Fuller said “schools are on our side” but the
parent Governor speaking tonight said that was not correct. “Which schools were
happy and which were concerned?”
Councillor Ogundayo also quoted the words of John Fuller provided in audio form
above and asked for it to be justified. “How much did the family highlighted
have to pay the Council following the lost Court case?”
Mr. James said the information should have been shared but wasn’t.
There was no information available on happy or concerned schools but a programme
of meetings with schools had been implemented.
Councillor Ogundayo said that her questions had not been properly answered but
was told that there was no information on which schools had been supportive of
Council policy which must cast doubt on the veracity of some of the statements made in July.
Councillor Ogundayo’s question about the lost Court case remained unanswered but tChairman
Alan Downing ruled the question to be “old history” and inappropriate to the
meeting. The Councillor complained that the lack of transparency made it more
difficult to learn from history. The Chairman told her “to sit quiet for a moment”.
Councillor Putson referred to the Agenda which listed the number of complaints and appeals and
asked how accurate the figures might be given that they were pretty much all
wrong in July. Absolutely accurate this time apparently. He went on to ask why
it was that at the last meeting the Cabinet Member was allowed to (innocently)
give out wrong information when the responsible officer was there and could have corrected him.
No straight answer was provided, just an assurance that this time the figures were correct.
Councillor Ogundayo came back with her question about the amount awarded
to the Council when a parent lost a Court case. Complaining parents ought to know the
risks. She still didn’t get anything beyond apologies for past mistakes.
The Chairman offered his opinion that no single individual was responsible for the
mistakes although he understood that “none of those are now present in the
Council.” Despite that I counted seven managers from the appropriate hierarchy
sitting at the Committee table. Maybe only junior heads rolled.
Councillor Ogundayo pressed her Court costs question once again and this time
was promised a written response.
Councillor Putson also asked about staffing levels and
as reported yesterday
they have risen from three to seven but in reality an even bigger increase
because the three often suffered vacancies.
Referring once again to the Agenda he drew attention to statements that appeared
to be “misleading, or inaccurate or contradictory” and were the dismissed cases
dismissed as a result of “political or budgetary pressures or policy or staff error?”
The Chairman didn’t like his question and was “disappointed that it was asked.
Bringing in politics is really out of order”.
Councillor Perfect (Labour, Northumberland Heath) attempted to bring the Cabinet Member to account for his
“ignorance” on 2nd July. Councillor Fuller didn’t like that word and reiterated
what Council Officers had already said more than once. No one had told him the
truth but since then he had “worked hard and had meetings almost daily to put it right”.
Councillor Francis (Labour, Belvedere) said the Council is claiming that they were correct in one case “but the LGO said in
writing we hadn’t complied and the lady walked away only because she was exhausted
by the process and we are still saying we were correct but that is not what the
LGO put in writing to the lady who made the presentation this evening.” Bexley
Council will always deceive if it can and only the Labour Councillors can be
relied on to expose them. Note who asked the only difficult questions recorded above.
Even the Chairman thought that Councillor Francis had made a good point.
Labour Leader Councillor Francis reminded Committee Members that almost half the
families rejected for SEN transport last year had it reinstated and the LGO had
complained of a lack of transparency and non-compliance. The Chief Executive
herself circulated “an email on the 24th of July which was quite frankly, in
retrospect, full of errors. It basically said only eight cases, nothing more to
see here. That email bears no resemblance to where we are now.”
Finally there was Councillor Ogundayo’s question about a more public apology but
as already reported she was given short shrift when all the Conservatives voted
against further apologies. It’s always best in Bexley to hush things up if you can.