Dear Tim Armstrong, Thank you for your communication of 21st August 2017. I note the content and respond as follows: - 1. As you know you requested to meet with me in my capacity as the Advocate for a range of children, whose families were seeking/struggling to secure their children’s entitlements from Sheffield City Council and I obliged in this regard. During the course of my advocacy, I became the target for vilification and misrepresentation from within the Sheffield City Council/your service, arising from my advocating for these vulnerable children. In public displays, comparable maltreatments took place subsequently and then in tandem towards members of the parent/carer originated, developed and led Charity Sparkle Sheffield who were requested by parents the breadth of the City to advocate for them as parents to. I had also lodged in writing to you a myriad of other concerns, regarding failings in - due process, timeliness, assessments, matching of SEND requirements to clearly presenting SEND needs, courtesy etc. I drew attention to the public berating by Council personnel, and the misleading of families on the SEND Code of Practice by the Council to yours and other Council personnel’s attention, and I understood that it was on the basis of these concerns that you requested to meet with me. Given the fact that Sparkle Sheffield had also been getting subjected to wrongful vilification and misrepresentation, I suggested their inclusion and requested of them, to hold the sad subsequent meeting at their Sparkle Sheffield office. You were amenable to this and the meeting proceeded. 2. In respect of your statement: - “For information we are also starting work on a range of consultation events with parents across the city for in the Autumn term to discuss SEND concerns and practice across the city which all groups such as Sparkle will be made aware of and invited to.” This belated drive on ‘consultation’ is noted, as is the fact that Sheffield City Council and your Department having in its possession already submitted and formally lodged concerns and complaints of longevity which remain unaddressed and festering. It is noted that rather than addressing these, the intent is to deploy a ‘showcase’ of ‘consultation’ to ‘gauge’ concerns rather than addressing the very serious concerns that not only I nor Sparkle Sheffield but other groups and individuals have already levied with the Council and your Department Mr Armstrong. An exercise on ‘putting lipstick on a corpse’, as they say in support groups, this fools no one Mr Armstrong. The Council, should in any event be consulting continually as part of their duties and responsibilities but very importantly to, they should have always been acting on that ‘consultation’ to redress concerns and complaints and to affect continual improvements. This has evidently not happened an action rather than more words and feigning ‘listening’ is exactly why parents in this City feel so strongly that they are taking to the streets to draw attention to their children’s and their own plights and to call upon their Council, to walk the talk and to stop the maltreatments and failings. During the meeting, you will also recall, that I requested that you forward on to Sparkle Sheffield and I as the independent Advocate for children, written feedback on the areas that Sparkle Sheffield and had raised concern and complaint on. You asserted that the Council consulted directly with the Sheffield Parents Forum and that Sparkle Sheffield had the opportunity to raise their concerns directly with this Forum and in doing so ‘acting like grown- up adults’ and on top of this insulting attempted directive and asserted position, you furthermore stated that they were in effect a statutory conduit for all communication with the SEND Department in Sheffield and that all communications with the Council should mandatorily go through them. The presenting inference being that the Council in Sheffield considered the Sheffield Parents Forum to be not merely conduits but gatekeepers. As you will recall I challenged this misdirection and pointed out that at no time did Government assert or have the intent for any Parent Carers Forum to be used in this way, or to impose that no group or representative of Disabled children and their families could only communicate with a Council and it’s SEND Department through the third party non-statutory Parent Carer Forum’s. You said, that you would go away, review and redress what Sparkle Sheffield had raised with you in the meeting and what I had raised to, but informed us that you were too busy to accede to my request that you update and respond to Sparkle Sheffield and I in writing and said that it was your preference to meet after the summer period and into the next term, to extend to Sparkle Sheffield and I verbal update/feedback, rather than written update/feedback and that was your preferred to be enforced intent to do, contrary to my request for to be updated/given feedback in writing. I trust the above sheds light on your assertion that: - “When we met at the Sparkle office on the 5th July I suggested meeting again towards the end of the summer/start of the new academic year to see further how we can work together to improve outcomes for children and young people in the city with SEND.” I also note that you say on the 21st August 2017, in your communication which focuses primarily upon seeking, as it presents, to waylay the parents protest, that you have: - “not had a chance to arrange a date before now.” 3. While noting you say that: - “I would not want parents to feel that the only route to having their voice and concerns heard is to have to protest in such a way. I wanted to see if there is a way we can work together to ensure that the Local Authority can hear the concerns of parents better and to address their concerns without the need for them having to protest. I want to do this in a way that works well for parents.” I suggest in response to this that you revert back to what I have said above and furthermore, as you know in the not too distant past, groups of parents were organising other ‘protests’, in Sheffield against the Council and your Department in particular, some associated with the Parents Carers Forum and I understand that the SEND Department stepped in at those times to offer to do exactly what you now again replicate above , last time to ‘meet’ though the Parents Carers Forum and through this approach the Parent Carer Forum people met with the SEND representatives, Jayne Ludlam, Dawn Walton etc., some minutes of which I have seen. The Council and in particular your Department sought to assuage, with promises, that concerns and complaints would be fully addressed and replication of your position of staff being overworked etc. was echoed. The meetings comprised of a minimal number of those expressing concern/intent to protest. Those attending had taken up the offer to meet through the Parents Carers Forum with you. On the basis of promises made, they and others stood back, awaiting the promises to come to fruition and the harms and detriments that had been accruing to the City’s Disabled children and their families to cease. Other parents/carers watching from the side lines and who had and were continuing to suffer due to Council failings and other actions and intent, sadly continued to suffer and grievances continued and have been magnifying to, across many groupings. As you know to, I and indeed Sparkle Sheffield did meet with the Council on 7th July 2017 and detailed to the Council in this meeting, with you, a myriad of concerns and complaints, all of longevity and still outstanding along with others accrued and shared already with Sheffield City Council, in more recent times which too, were not satisfactorily addressed. There has been a plethora of promises in one way or another to parents/carers, families and support groups of various kinds over longevity that things would change but the facts are evident that they have not and parents/cares and families and support groups are sick to the back teeth of these stalling initiatives/overtures, pertaining to offering and even attending meetings, again and again and again, where recognition and or excuses are made of the failings by Sheffield City Council, but following on from this satisfactory change is not forthcoming As previously detailed to you Sparkle Sheffield, were being inundated with concerns and complaints and as the records show, and as Sparkle Sheffield told you in the meeting with you of the 7th July 2017 that I was involved in also, as you had requested the meeting with me in my capacity of being the adversely affected children’s advocate, Sparkle Sheffield were obliged to extend upon their advocacy delivery accordingly, in order to support parents requesting this support and as means of aiding Sheffield City Council with their voice and influence duties and responsibilities, likewise for me as an independent advocate for children, young people and young adults, I too, was experiencing and seeing, not a reduction in the areas the Council had promised to redress but an escalation in concern, diminutions in provision and the maltreatment of children and families which was having an adverse impact upon them. Parents/carers and extended families across the City were rapidly losing trust in Sheffield City Council and their partners expressing openly that they were being ignored on individual cases and in collective grievance and groups began to organise ‘protests’ independent of each other. They made representation to me on these concerns and their intent, and at the same time were making representation to Sparkle Sheffield also. Some of these parents/carers were members of Sparkle Sheffield but the vast majority of them, as I pointed out to you, were not at that time, these included members of the Parents Carers Forum. It was I directly who was requested to organise and lead the ‘protest’ Mr Armstrong, because I am an over 30 years standing known advocate in this City and nationally, whom you termed in your opening words to me on the 7th July 2017, as my being a person who has ‘fingers in many pies’. Please know that it is I, as an individual and not Sparkle Sheffield that is the named organiser of the protest. This was confirmed in writing with South Yorkshire Police, and parents seeking the protest have subsequently asked Sparkle Sheffield to coordinate publicity/awareness raising an a petition, under their auspices in alignment with this, so great are the parents/carers and their families aggrieved across the City. You will recall that in the meeting in July 2017, that I pointed out also to you ahead, that families were vehement that they had, had enough and were thinking of moving towards public expression and demonstration of their concerns and complaints, due to improper failings to redress the outstanding and escalating concerns and complaints and I furthermore pointed out to you that parents/carers and families, the breadth of the city of Sheffield, considered that they were being abused by Sheffield City Council and you took umbrage with this descriptor of theirs, and I said to you in response that I concurred with what they were saying and experiencing by way of their children and they, as families, being subjected to organisational ignoring, not being given their entitlements, being blamed and berated for asking for their entitlements and I shared with you horrific live case examples where one child, aged 13, despite being on the severe level of autism, has been denied a Statement of Special Educational Needs since her preschool days, children being out of school, not only for days or weeks but months and even years, children tearing their hair and eyelashes out and displaying other self-harms because they are being forced to attend schools that cannot and do not meet their SEND requirements, children, whose SEND conditions are denied by the Council, despite their evident conditions being prominent, children being subjected to wrongful unofficial exclusions and being forcibly denied full time education, an entitlement enshrined in law, children aged 6 being diagnosed with depression due to them awaiting a final EHCP and designation of the right school, threats of Court or protection proceedings against parents whose children were not in attendance in school , due to the fact they could not attend the school they had wrongfully been allocated because of the failings to meet their SEND requirements in these schools, resulting in the harming of their children and their children refusing to go to school, the wrongful misrepresentations that parents were doing elective education when in fact they had no choice to secure for their child- education otherwise because their children were forced out of school due to their SEND requirements not being met by Schools or the LA, parents/carers being misled by the Council, that they cannot have an EHC Plan until their child reaches five, then told that they must be in school at five for three terms before they are permitted to even be considered for an assessment for an EHC Plan and other disgraceful misleading to, rejected from having an EHC Plan, on the basis that the non-statutory local My Plan for the child is not ‘formatted correctly etc. As you know, I said that in my deploying the descriptor ‘abuse’, that I did so because that is the experience of the children and families and what they were being subjected to was and is abusive and as I said to you Mr Armstrong, I was and remain more than amenable for the Council to challenge me on this and would be willing to speak to Full Council, the Press etc. where I would justify in public, open and transparent arenas my use and the families’ use, of the term ‘abuse’ and its absolute appropriateness. 4. You will recall, that in the meeting, that you requested previously, and which I duly accommodated, in accordance with your past request, to hear concerns and complaints that when I again drew to your attention all of the above and more, you expressed that your staff team were overworked, that staff were going off ill, as a result of advocates in effect empowering children and families to ask for their entitlements and you will recall that I challenged this too. You also levied blame upon a parent present for her child having won an Appeal Tribunal and her son being designated accordingly with his entitled Special School placement, you saying in opposition to this that the cost of that one placement now meant that five other Disabled children in mainstream schools in the City were and would suffer as a consequence of her child having been given his entitlement place. This too was rightfully challenged Mr Armstrong, as you will recall and it was pointed out that the drive to be resource led and need needs led and other failings of Sheffield City Council, should not be levied at parents in a process of wrongfully dispersing blame upon them for Council failings or for the fact Disabled children are alive and increasing in number or for these very vulnerable protected equalities characteristic children having their SEND requirement provisions met, including them being met under Court directives due to Sheffield City Council breaching the law in this regard, in the first place. 5. In respect of you saying to me in your communication of 21st August 2017 that: - “I’ve also been made aware that Sparkle are organising a protest on the 9th September for parents in regards to the SEND team and provision for children with SENDI am happy to arrange a meeting with the parents who intend to protest and/or Sparkle as a whole to see if we can start to address this for them and you. If we can discuss a way forward on this, I hope it will help to address parental concerns and prevent the need for protest.” I am minded that I notified the Police of the protest, in accordance with due process and have issued to them the risk assessment/event management of the event on the day, which incorporates Sparkle Sheffield personnel supporting me as the organiser of the event at parents’ request, with publicity, marshalling etc. all of which I understood the Police were to draw to Sheffield City Council’s attention, as due process dictates to. In response to your above position on opening up ‘discussion’ on concerns and looking at a way forward , it is fact that this was promised to other parents and acceded to before, by others and the way forward plan, developed then and promised for implementation to redress concerns and complaints from parents, then, has not come to effective fruition and concerns and complaints not only endure but have been increasing, the Council have known this but have failed to redress it and parents and families’ are of the full opinion that this cannot and will not go on. Therefore, they are continuing to ask me to support them to deploy their entitlement to make publicly known their serious concerns and complaints and for these concerns and complaints to be shared in an open, transparent and public way with Sheffield City Council, and as you know they are entitled to do this and indeed, in respect of you seeking to stop the protest on the 9th September 2017, as you should know, the Human Rights Act- Article 11 provides the Right to protest and the Right to freedom of association. This law, determines that everyone has the right to freedom of peaceful assembly. This is a right closely linked to the right to freedom of expression too Mr Armstrong. It provides a means for public expression and is one of the foundations of a democratic society. The right applies to protest marches and demonstrations, press conferences, public and private meetings, ‘sit-ins’, motionless protests etc. all of which are forward planned to occur also in the forthcoming future at parental/families’ requests, if/as/and when the concerns and complaints already made fully known to Sheffield City Council and being reiterated in this protest are not addressed to the satisfaction of those being adversely affected by Sheffield City Council’s failings. Parents/carers are being supported in this by others supporting them to attain their children’s and their own rights and entitlements. If you are amenable, and in order to continue to be reasonable and cooperative, the adversely affected people and I would like to suggest that if you/your line managers/politicians responsible, would like a slot to address the protest on the 9th September 2017 and to take questions etc. from the attendees on that day at this protest, I, as the Protest Organiser, will facilitate this accordingly, and in accordance with your proffering to hear directly from parents/carers again, of their concerns and complaints. You might to, like to look at the petition on line calling upon Sheffield City Council to stop the abuses, therein, rafts of parents/carers are also expressing their experiences, concerns and complaints in the transparent public eye for all to see, which also counteracts, the denial they and we all have been subjected to pertaining to the lived experiences of children with SEND and their families in this City. The Council, are fully briefed and knowledgeable of the realities over longevity. Parents/carers want action and or Sheffield City Council to at last walk the talk of making change Do, let me know in a timely manner, if the above offer to speak at and engage with parents/carers and family members at the forthcoming Protest March of the 9th September 2017 in response to your wanting to repeat the long in the tooth, and getting know where, previous exercises of ‘talking with parents/carers to hear their concerns and complaints etc.’ ( but nothing satisfactorily concrete ensuing previously) is one that the Council and your Send Department in particular wish to take up, so that I can make arrangements for accordingly Yours Sincerely Chrissy Meleady MBE Named Organiser of the Protest of 9th September 2017 cc 1 - 1, 300