Educational psychologists in Bedford voting on industrial action

The Association of Educational Psychologists (AEP) is balloting members on industrial action, after four of the council’s seven educational psychologists were taken off duty for reasons which AEP believes could have been dealt with at a lower level.
 
AEP has also criticised the council’s proposed 50 per cent cut to the educational psychology department, which it said will make it unable to fulfil its statutory duties and cause children and young people in the borough to suffer as a result.
 
“The issues that are arising should have been able to be addressed via standard supervision sessions, and they seem to have been elevated very quickly through disciplinary to suspensions,” said AEP general secretary Kate Fallon.

Fallon said the council had used “bullying and harassment” towards the staff members, and suggested the authority was looking for ways to get rid of people within the agenda of reducing the education psychology service.

“The proposals for redundancies include the very posts of the people who have been suspended – that’s when it begins to look a little suspicious,” she added.

AEP has also warned local schools that the reduction of staff would leave the team unable to meet its statutory educational psychology duties.

“If a child has special educational needs that a school has been trying to address and they feel the child needs more than can be offered by the school, they would have asked the council for a statutory assessment of educational needs,” said Fallon.

“If you haven’t got psychologists around helping with that work, children won’t be able to have the assessments and the local authority will fall foul of its time constraints within the statutory framework,” she added.

Bedford council said it was unable to comment on allegations of bullying, as this would be inappropriate while undertaking disciplinary action against staff.
 
“The council has held detailed negotiations with AEP,” said a Bedford council spokeswoman.

“It is the reflection of the current budget situation that educational psychology services have to be tailored to meet the funds available and the council’s statutory duty.”

AEP confirmed that the suspensions were due to internal staff issues that had nothing to do with children.