A WIRRAL mum has accused Wirral Council of leaving parents and children “feeling invisible” and argued its support services for children with special educational needs and disabilities (SEND) were “beyond broken now.”

Rachel Scott was joining staff on a picket line as they took their second day of strike action.

The National Education Union (NEU) strike is taking place over issues around pay linked to a staff restructure which will see some current staff’s pay go down as well as working conditions with some staff dealing with more than 100 cases. The council is trying to improve services following a government notice earlier this year but staff have told the LDRS the job was “the worst it’s ever been.”

At the picket line on October 22 outside the council’s offices in Birkenhead, the NEU said they had repeatedly asked senior council staff to meet with them as they came into work but all requests were refused. The union said there had been no change from the council following strike action on October 16 though the local authority previously said it has fully engaged with unions throughout.

Four more days of action are planned October 24, 29, 30 and 31 and the union may decide to take further industrial action. Bora Oktas, NEU regional officer, said: “If you are a public servant, you need to be accountable,” adding: “Give me five or ten minutes I said just now, just five to ten minutes.”

He said: “They haven’t engaged with the strike. They just encouraged staff to stay away today because of the parent protest, encouraging the whole team to stay away.”

Ferdushi Moshin, Wirral NEU assistant secretary and Birkenhead teacher, said schools were struggling to accommodate for children with SEND, adding: “You can hear from parents how desperate they are feeling.

“As a teacher I know first hand the needs of children in the classroom but also as a parent. My daughter has SEND and the difference it made having a team of people supporting her. She is 19 now and in second year of University. If it wasn’t for services like this, we wouldn’t be where we are.”

Two parents attended the protest. While it had been hoped more people would turn up, they believed this may be because some would have been looking after their children who were out of school or weren’t able to get time off work at such short notice. Staff said they had received supportive emails from parents following the first strike.

Rachel Scott who organised the protest said she has been trying to get the right support for her daughter Charlotte since 2018. She believes the council services are “beyond broken” with children and parents made to feel invisible, frustrated, and let down.

She thanked staff for striking, adding: “It’s sad it’s come to this and you haven’t been recognised by your own management. We have written so many emails and things still haven’t changed.”

She said: “They make our children non-existent,” adding: “If we do not stand together, the people who this fails the most is our children. It does cause a huge amount of stress.

“We are speaking to parents who say would it be better to end it all. When you are pushed to the limits on everything, you will think how will this ever end.

“I feel it for every child. It’s not just me. There’s loads of parents that are emotionally exhausted and can’t deal with what is happening to their families. They need someone to say this can’t carry on. This has to stop.”

While the council is set to invest more in the team with £3.9m over two years with an aim to double its size, staff said it will take much longer for new staff to be trained and manage high case loads but a bigger team also wouldn’t solve every problem. Currently managing a lot of cases, staff said they’re having to train any agency or new staff adding further pressure to the job too.

One staff member, who asked to remain anonymous, said one agency staff member brought in by the local authority only lasted a day while another was only there for a week. They said: “They are focusing a lot on the investment but ignoring the reality day to day. It’s incredibly tough and they are just ignoring that. There’s no support.”

They said: “We are saying it’s the worst it’s ever been right now. Recruitment takes time, getting people skilled takes time. Deal with what is happening right now.”

“I think that the frustrating thing is there is no real acknowledgement of what we are really all experiencing in this job. They are talking about improvements and we haven’t seen any. We just see it getting worse.”

However staff said they felt validated by a statement from the local authority’s education director Elizabeth Hartley where she said she agreed with staff about unmanageable working conditions, adding: “We really hope that things are going to get better.

“We have to have faith the restructure is going to help but we feel so disappointed that the team members who struck through this hard times are the ones who are going to be affected and yet they expect us to keep doing all the work.

“There’s no acknowledgement of why staff are leaving. It’s because it’s so hard right now. Just because we have got investment of money, it doesn’t fix what is wrong here.”

In response to criticisms from parents over the service, Elizabeth Hartley, Director for Children, Families and Education at Wirral Council, previously said: “I fully recognise that for too long, children and young people with SEND and their parents and carers have had a poor experience of getting support from the council. We have committed to putting this right – putting children and families first – and we are focused and making progress on wide-ranging improvements to SEND services.

“Over the last six months we have accelerated the pace of this improvement work, which includes implementing a restructure of the Council’s SEND Services which will address staff caseloads and their line management support and enable us all to provide a better service to children, parents and carers.

“This has been backed by investment from the council, which has committed a further £1.1m this year to improving our SEND services and £2.8m next year. This will enable us to almost double the number of case holding staff, thereby halving the size of the team’s caseloads.

“We know it isn’t all about money, which is why the investment and restructure is complemented by a fresh approach to engagement with parents and carers through their forum and better partnership working, led by a multi-disciplined partnership board.

“Implementing comprehensive and meaningful change is difficult and it is frustrating that that it can’t be effected overnight. But we are fully focused on delivering the improvements for Wirral’s children and families.”