Council's children's boss refuses to resign after delays with much-needed SEND provision in Northampton

The councillor in charge of special needs provision at West Northamptonshire Council has refused to resign in face of claims she presided over “failure after failure”.

Councillor Fiona Baker last week said delays to a project that mean children with special needs will be based at two sites rather than one as planned “could have been a disaster” but was a “positive result”.

Cllr Baker struck a more conciliatory note at a cabinet meeting on Tuesday when she said the last fortnight had been “really challenging” for children and parents affected by delays at the proposed unit at Hunsbury Park Primary School in Northampton.

The unit for 50 children had been due to open in September but some of the children will now be educated at Chiltern Primary School in the town from October. The work will cost £2 million.

Shortly before she presented a three-year strategy for special needs provision, Cllr Baker told cabinet members: “I need to acknowledge the impact this has had on children and their families and I am committed that the council will learn from this experience.

“For me as a cabinet member the last two weeks have also been challenging. I remain disappointed that we have not delivered on our own expectations.”

The council’s cabinet member for children, families and education said the new strategy “won’t automatically mean that everything will be perfect”.

She added: “It will take time for where we want to be. There will be occasions over the next three years when we will not deliver against our own expectations and unfortunately that will result in poor outcomes for a small number of children.”

Labour group leader Councillor Wendy Randall said Councillor Baker had presided over multiple failures, including issues with special needs provision that saw nine families affected by problems paid a total of nearly £49,000 in compensation.

But Cllr Baker said: “I do have to say that calls for my resignation are not helpful, not just for me personally but also for the service as it does not support the stability that we are working so hard to create.”

Cllr Randall said: “Everybody knows that we have budgets that we are struggling with but people like the truth. It’s much better to say we have got a delay in this, can we talk about it?”

Later, the council’s deputy chief executive, Stuart Lackenby, said: “Over the last two weeks we’ve had to convey some really difficult messages. Can I say that we have done the best job of that all the time? Probably not.

“I do struggle with the notion that we haven’t told people the truth…We are absolutely committed to being really transparent with the things that we do well but also the things that we struggle with,” he added.

Council leader Councillor Jonathan Nunn said improving special needs provision is a “top priority” for the authority and that it is “racing like heck” to increase capacity.

He added: “No one can do that better than Fiona and I think it’s easy to make cheap comments that that is a failure, that is a failure but I don’t see that.

“I see people participating in a scheme that they’re signed up [to] knowing that the world is not perfect and this service isn’t perfect but, boy, you couldn’t be doing much more to improve it and make it work.”

Deputy leader Councillor Adam Brown said he had not heard opposition councillors criticise “a single political choice [made] by Cllr Baker that has been in any way wrong”.

He added: “Before people call for resignations they need to identify fault with political choices rather than just identifying operational issues that have delivered sub-optimal outcomes when actually the policy being put in place by the cabinet member is, as far as possible, very sound indeed.”