Bristol SEND Surveillance ‘Watching’ Was Not Written Down Council Says
The ‘watching brief’ in the council’s external comms team was ‘keeping an eye’
Bristol City Council has employees ‘keeping an eye’ on social media relating to Special Educational Needs and Disabilities (SEND), but denies having a ‘written document or brief’ to do so.
Aileen McColgan KC’s recent independent investigation into accusations of SEND spying found ‘evidence gathering’, ‘surveillance’, ‘monitoring’, ‘collation and forwarding’ of Send parents’ social media.
Ultimately, despite finding instances of behaviour that ‘may have involved ‘surveillance’ for the purposes of RIPA’, the barrister found in the council’s favour.
Paragraph 55 on page 40 of the report shows that SEND social media was monitoried by Bristol External Comms through a ‘watching brief’.
McColgan writes: ‘I have a watching brief of SEND social and our approach is not to reply…’ There are other examples of External Comms discussion and/or forwarding Tweets complaining about SEND at around this time.’
But what exactly is a ‘watching brief’? We asked Bristol City Council through a Freedom of Information (FOI) request.
Our request was: ‘This is regarding the Independent Social Media Investigation of the Alleged Social Media Monitoring by Bristol City Council.
‘Page 40 paragraph 55 says ‘I have a watching brief on SEND social’.
‘Please release this documents as well as any subsequent briefs, documents or communication plans regarding Send on social media.’
The response came from the External Communications Manager at the council. He said that the information is not held because the phrase ‘watching brief’ means someone is ‘keeping an eye on the issue’.
Aileen McColgan stated in her report that whilst the behaviour of Bristol City Council staff did amount to surveillance, she did not believe it would meet the threshold for ‘covert’ surveillance.
In his full response to the FOI, the External Comms manger wrote: ‘I am writing to advise you that, following a search of our paper and electronic records, I have established that the information you requested is not held by Bristol City Council.
‘Information is not held because the phrase ‘watching brief’ from the report simply refers to someone keeping an eye on this issue. There is no written document or brief.
‘Also, we do not have any communications plans or documents regarding SEND on social media.’
Just this week, Bristol City Council revealed plans around external communications for its new SEND Reform Plan.
Issues with what people said about SEND on social media was a defining characteristic of the failed Mayoral administration headed by Marvin Rees.
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