Fury as ASN staff cuts to remain part of consultation
FURIOUS parents of children with special needs laid siege to Kilmory Castle on Thursday to protest against ‘disgusting’ council spending cuts proposed by the local authority.
The parents campaigned outside the building and many attended the meeting of Argyll and Bute Council, where it was decided a recommendation to cut 45 per cent of Additional Support Needs (ASN) staff would go to public consultation as planned.
The protest was organised by irate mothers from the Oban area, who are members of Argyll and Bute Parents Against Council Cuts (ABPACC).
They were joined by many parents from across the region.
If cuts are approved, the equivalent of 72 full-time jobs will go each year over the next two years, with 20 per cent of classroom assistants in both primary and secondary schools set to be axed to save £1.4 million.
The beleaguered local authority has drawn up an eye-watering parcel of cuts for the next two years, which it is to consult the public on from tomorrow (Friday), as it attempts to claw back £18 million to balance the books.
Two petitions, with more than 1,100 and 500 names on them respectively, calling for the cuts that would affect vulnerable children to be taken out of the consultation, were presented to council leader Dick Walsh before the meeting got under way.
Two amendments were proposed, one by Dunoon councillor Michael Breslin, asking that the recommendations be rejected and for the whole budget to be re- examined ‘line by line’ from November onwards.
Mr Breslin formed the Reform Group with Vivien Dance and Bruce Marshall in September to oppose the council’s administration.
Sandy Taylor, leader of the opposition SNP group, proposed an amendment which, while it ‘noted the voiced concerns of many elected members’, and ‘regrets the unnecessary angst and anxiety many people have suffered’, agreed that the savings would be included within the public consultation. It was supported by all the SNP councillors, as well as Labour’s Neil MacIntyre.
Four councillors abstained from the vote and three were absent. As the motion was voted through by the administration there were shouts of ‘disgusting’ and ‘this is shameful’ from parents at the back of the council chamber. Many continued to vent their anger after the meeting was finished.
Angus Files travelled from Oban with his autistic son, Geoffrey, 18, to campaign against the cuts, bringing with them a banner which read: ‘Sack the man who failed to plan’, aimed at council leader Dick Walsh.
Angus said on Friday: ‘Yesterday marks a sad day in the history of Argyll and Bute. Yesterday our rights came under fierce attack from the very people we elected to protect our rights. If the right to decide what services we need is wrongfully taken from us, what meaningful rights do we have?’
Councillor Walsh said: ‘These are challenging times for us, brought about by the reduction in our financial settlement from central government. Our costs and expenses don’t match our expenditure.
‘We have to reduce our expenditure significantly. I will make myself personally available to parents caught up in this very difficult situation this council faces.
‘There are no proposals today to cut council services. We are going out there to have a conversation with our communities to consult on a whole serious of options.’ He pledged to consider the ASN issue early within the service choices process to avoid a lengthy period of uncertainty.
Vivienne Hopperton-Dunlop travelled from Appin to protest for the rights of her daughter, Fallon, who is autistic.
She said: ‘I’m absolutely disgusted. They say they want to get rid of our stress over this and deal with it quickly. They should have agreed to Michael Breslin’s amendment and this should never have made it to consultation.
‘In two weeks we set up the ABPACC group and got a lot of support for our petition. If they want a fight, they will get a fight.’
The consultation will be available online from tomorrow (Friday), and in print from November 10 in libraries and customer service points until it finishes at the end of December.