A BIZARRE AND RAMBLING SPEECH from city council social services director, Jacqui “Trust Me I’m a Doctor” Jensen, to Bristol’s long-suffering SEND parents at an event in June achieved little beyond richly demonstrating that Jensen is not up to the job.

As an opening gambit, Jensen admitted that the judicial review launched and won by SEND parents last year to reverse the council’s unlawful cuts to special needs budgets – cheerily implemented by Jensen two years ago – created “A KIND OF MIX BETWEEN PARALYSIS AND PANIC” in the SEND department. A department that she’s paid a fortune to run competently.

SO WHAT ARE WE PAYING JENSEN BIG MONEY FOR EXACTLY? Couldn’t we just get someone in off the street on minimum wage to create “a kind of mix between paralysis and panic” in the council’s SEND department? Jensen then went on to make the weird claim that the judicial review, won at great cost in time and money by Bristol parents, was, er, “A TECHNICAL PIECE OF CONSULTATION“.

Who knew? When did the council start doing public consultations at the High Court with the expensive help of a judge, solicitors and barristers working together to deliver a multi-million pound bill to council taxpayers at the end? Is this a new best value approach to consultations from our council tax?

“Not good enough,” heckled one frustrated parent at Jensen. We agree.