Parents of special needs children in Bristol have demanded an independent inquiry into a scandal which saw council officers monitor the parents’ social media posts. A motion has been proposed demanding an independent inquiry is set up into what happened around the council officers monitoring of social media accounts of parents, as part of a move to take funding away from the Bristol Parent Carer Forum, the council’s partner group of parents.
An internal investigation into the scandal was presented to councillors last month, but its findings - which claimed there was ‘no systematic’ spying on the parents of children with special educational needs or disabilities - has not satisfied the parents or opposition councillors at City Hall. On Tuesday, the full council meeting will see a proposal to be voted on that an independent inquiry is set up, with council officers required to properly explain what they were doing checking the social media posts of parents, and who had asked them to do that.
The scandal erupted just before it was announced the city council was trying to remove the official funding and status from the Bristol Parent Carer Forum, the group of parents the council was partnering with to try to improve the city’s poorly-rated SEND provision. The council said they were dropping the BPCF because some parents on the forum had criticised the council’s SEND performance on social media - but it became apparent that some of the social media posts being cited as evidence for this were in private groups or from private accounts, and officers at the council had been collecting evidence from these in apparent breach of council policy.
