Matt Dunkley KCC Director for Children, Young People and Education to leave KCC
shepwayvox
Updated @ 20:17
Matt Dunkley CBE Kent County Council Corporate Director for Children, Young People and Education, will be leaving KCC in the near future.
Mr Dunkley was the Director responsible for implmenting a “shake up” in the special educational needs transport costs which stood at £2m, and rising. He implemented a cost saving exercise to reduce costs, but in Feb 2022, the shake up left hundreds of families in the lurch when no taxi’s turned up to take the special education need pupils to school.
Mr Dunkley left Norfolk County Council in Oct 2017, where he was engaged through a recruitment agency as an interim Executive Director of Children’s Services, before joining KCC in Nov 2017.
Seventeen months after Mr. Dunkley joined the organsitaion a damning Ofsted report,released in March 2019, rocked KCC significantly as it vindicated what parents had been saying all along – KCC SEND services were not fit for purpose.
The report found:
Too many children and young people with special educational needs and disabilities (SEND) do not get the support they need;
Parents and carers who contributed to the inspection were overwhelmingly negative about their dealings with the council and NHS;
Not enough was done to ensure parents understood the systems in place to enable their children to get the support they need;
Not all schools and settings were willing to accommodate children and young people with SEND;
The complex arrangement of health providers were not effective in meeting childrens’ needs;
Children and young people experience unacceptable inequality when accessing services in Kent;
Educational outcomes for children with SEND are not good enough.
In 2020/21 Mr Dunkley’s salary (Including Fees & Allowances) was £201,616
