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Charity to take council to court over spending cuts 1

Governance | Kirsty Weakley | 18 Aug 2011

The National Deaf Children’s Society (NDCS) has begun legal action against Stoke-on-Trent city council over cuts to support services.

NDCS claims that the council is in breach of the law for both not properly assessing the impact the cuts will have on deaf children, and for bringing in changes that put deaf children at a disadvantage.

The charity is concerned about the reduction in the number of teacher-for-the-deaf posts following a restructure of support services carried out last year.

In March four teachers took voluntary redundancy and from September another teacher will no longer be working directly with deaf children.

From September there will be three visiting teachers for 200 children with a ratio of 70 children to each teacher. This is more than double the ratio that existed two years ago, which was 28:1.

The charity has instructed lawyers, Freshfields Bruckhaus Deringer, which has informed the council of the charity’s plans to take legal action unless the council reverses its decision by Friday 19 August.

Jo Campion, NDCS deputy director of campaigns, said: “The council has been utterly reckless in its decision to cut support that deaf children in Stoke-on-Trent need to achieve at school.

“They have rushed these cuts through with no regard for the impact on the future of these deaf children and have left parents to rely on rumour to find out what exactly has been going on.”

Between March and June, the charity ran an e-petition on the council’s website calling for the council to save special support services for deaf children which attracted 588 signatures.

At the beginning of August NDCS agreed to work with the council to develop services, but the council did not respond to its request that the proposed changes would not be implemented until an assessment had been carried out and local parents had been given the opportunity to comment.

A spokesman for the city council said: “In light of impending legal action from the National Deaf Children's Society, it would be inappropriate for the city council to comment further at this stage.”

The charity is campaigning to save support services for deaf children across the UK but Stoke-on-Trent is the only council they are currently taking legal action against.

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