A MUM who has faced repeated battles to secure the right education for special needs children in Worcestershire led a protest against the council on the day it was inspected by Ofsted.

Tracy Winchester, from Bromsgrove, who has repeatedly called for more support for children like her two sons, both of whom are autistic, led a group of parents to County Hall ahead of an inspection.

She said: "We just would like the improvements that we need and our children deserve in our county.

"In some respects, things seem worse than in 2018, and the little improvements noted by some families seem to be completely overshadowed by the continued utter disregard of children’s needs in other cases.

"The culture is overwhelmingly toxic and money-orientated; it’s no wonder there is such a high staff turnover."

The protest coincided with a visit from the Care Quality Commission and Ofsted, and saw a group of people with placards showing messages for the council.

One read: "My 14 year-old has autism and an EHCP (education and health care plan) but no education for two years, no suitable placement and no local authority caseworker."

In 2018, the CQC and Ofsted conducted a joint inspection in Worcestershire to judge the authority's effectiveness in implementing the special educational needs and disability (SEND) reforms as set out in the Children and Families Act 2014.

Identified failings included lack of strategic direction from leadership, children and young people who have SEN and/or disabilities are not provided with the quality of support and service to which they are legally entitled, overwhelmingly negative relationships with Parent-Carers and families, poor quality education, health and care plans (EHCPs), rising numbers of children with SEND school exclusions and inefficient and untimely referral and assessment process for autistic spectrum disorder.

Responding to the protest, cabinet member for education Cllr Marcus Hart said he understood the frustrations of parents and assured them the council was working to improve.

He said: "We understand how serious and frustrating it is for all involved when children are not accessing the right type of education or a level of support that allows them to reach their full potential.

"We have worked hard alongside our schools to ensure that we understand and support individual needs earlier to prevent this from happening and if a child should find themselves not accessing an appropriate school, we have made improvements to reduce the impact of this for children.

"We take the experiences of children and families very seriously and know that we need to continue our improvement journey to ensure that we are able to sustain changes and continue to develop our support for families across the partnership.

"We hope that parent carers will share where they have experienced improvements and provide feedback where things still need to get better.

"As part of the preparation for the inspection, parents and carers were encouraged to complete an online parents’ survey to ensure their views are heard and represented in the inspection outcome."