Bristol Social Care Hub For Disabled Children Flopped?
Has Bristol City Council’s FLORA Flopped?
A Bristol City Council team designed to help families whose children have ‘additional needs’ appears to have flopped.
Families, Local Offer, Resources and Advice – FLORA – is part of the council’s Disabled Children’s Service.
It sits as part of its Social Care Hub offering advice and information to families on services as soon as they think their child might have additional needs. It came out of Bristol City Council’s Written Statement of Action, which was put together after failing its Joint Send Inspection by Ofsted and the CQC in 2019.
FLORA runs via a phone line and email address, both of which went went live in June 2021 for families.
An update on the Education Transformation Programme in 2022/23 as part of a proposal to continue funding FLORA – requiring approval by Bristol School’s Forum in a meeting on 30 November 2021 – revealed the statistics behind the programme in its first year.
Between March and November in 2021, Bristol Schools Forum papers show who that 338 enquiries were made to FLORA during that time period. It hit peak busyness in September 2021 with 79 enquiries made.
The main reason parent carers contacted FLORA was to do with questions related to autism. This accounted for 56 enquires at the time.
The paper was written and presented by former Director of Education Alison Hurley.
Hurley told the forum that it took an average of 3-4 hours to deal with each enquiry. This included making calls to professionals and services as well as researching and tailoring information and advice.
Hurley said that the parent carers ‘welcomed someone listening to them’ which resulted in call times ‘being extended’.
But the FLORA team sits under Bristol Disabled Children team which at the same time as the ‘extended’ call times has been accused of spying on the city’s SEND parents.
Last month we received data from Bristol City Council around the current number of enquiries from both parent carers and education settings that had been handled by the FLORA Team.
In the same time period in 2025, the number has dropped to 277 from parent carers and 23 from schools.
There are over 13,000 children and young people with SEND in Bristol.
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