Furious parents yesterday challenged north councillors to meet their disabled children before approving controversial plans to slash their support in the classrooms.
The Argyll and Bute Parents Against Council Cuts (ABPACC) group wants local politicians to visit their youngsters in school and see how heavily they rely on their additional support needs (ASN) assistants.
Mother of a disabled child Vivienne Hopperton-Dunlop was speaking as Argyll and Bute Council voted to go out to consultation on a raft of swingeing cuts which could see the number of ASN assistants halved.
Cutting the 72 posts to save £1.4million is the biggest saving measure earmarked by the council as part of a controversial £18million squeeze over the next two years.
Angry members of ABPACC protested outside council headquarters at Lochgilphead, calling for the cuts which would hit vulnerable children to be taken out of the consultation.
A petition with 1,102 names on it was presented to Council Leader Dick Walsh before the meeting.
The council voted to go out to consultation on all of the proposed cuts – which includes axing hundreds of jobs, increasing burial costs, cancelling Christmas lights and cutting bin collections.
Speaking afterwards, Mrs Hopperton-Dunlop said: “They will have a fight on their hands. It is absolutely disgusting.”
She added: “Our children need help. They can’t function without one to one support. My child can’t go to the toilet without support.
“We would invite them to come to Rockfield Primary School Campus in Oban to see how much our children need the one to one support they have got and how on earth could they possibly take this vital support away from these vulnerable children.
“They have just added more stress to our extremely stressful lives.”
Fiona Cowan, another member of ABPACC, said: “The fact that they have not taken the Additional Support Needs issues out of the consultation is very suggestive of the fact that they intend to put them through.
“I am very concerned.”
However, Councillor Walsh said: “These are challenging times for us, brought about by the reduction in our financial settlement from government.
“Our costs and expenses don’t match our expenditure. We have a significant gap. We have to reduce our expenditure significantly.
“We have options set out for consultation. We are considering a whole range of areas about how we do our work.
“There are no quick fixes. We want to sort this problem once and for all.
“We have already heard from people about some savings, I will make myself personally available to those parents who are caught up in this very difficult situation this council faces.”
He pledged to consider the special education needs issue early within the service choices process to avoid a lengthy period of uncertainty for them, and added that the council has more options out for consultation than it requires to take.
“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 said.