Plummeting performance on SEN plans saw Warwickshire County Council's education lead face fresh questions over his future in another cabinet meeting beset by petulant squabbling.

Liberal Democrat councillors asked whether portfolio holder for children, families, education and special educational needs and disabilities Cllr Wayne Briggs would be encouraged to resign after it emerged that more than 90 per cent of Warwickshire children seeking education, health and care plans (EHCPs) were waiting longer than the legal limit of 20 weeks, significantly worse than the national average of 53 per cent.

Cllr Jennifer McAllister said she and fellow councillors had been "repeatedly told EHCP performance would improve" by leader Cllr George Finch over the past year.

"It is not just a question of rising demand, it was known there would be rising demand, it should have been forecast and built into the plan," she argued, going on to ask the leader if he would consider his merger of two children's portfolios – Cllr Finch used to oversee children and families – whether Cllr Briggs would be asked to resign and whether the leader accepted accountability for the "failure".

Cllr Finch said EHCPs were not part of his former portfolio and encouraged Cllr McAllister to "check your facts".

"I will not be changing the way the portfolio holder runs," he added.

"It was run that way before and with the close link between children and families, children in care, EHCPs, SEND and education, I think people would like for us not to work separately.

"I think, actually, what we have done is innovative."

Cllr Finch did acknowledge the council's EHCP performance was "shocking" and that he and Cllr Briggs would "look at this personally"

"We don't think this is where we should be at all," he added.

"What has happened is we have been misled on this issue and we need to make sure that EHCP statistics are where they are, these kids are very vulnerable. I was speaking to officers about how best we can make sure the people that are using our services are actually heard and advocated for."

Cllr Finch then said that "drastic" national changes had prompted an influx of plan requests, blaming the national government before redirecting the debate towards local government reorganisation.

His swipes at national government fuelled what would become an increasingly febrile atmosphere with opposition leader Cllr Sarah Boad sarcastically laughing.

Cllr Briggs later read out prepared comments on the EHCP issue, acknowledging performance is "not where we want it to be".

With demand rising, he admitted the "volume of work entering the system is now greater than our current capacity to complete plans" but said that a recovery plan, including the "outsourcing of 300 outstanding plans", the appointment of new staff, "redirecting resources" into tackling the problem and the use of Microsoft Copilot to assist with the administrative side, was being progressed.

"We have redesigned the process in the past," he added.

"Maybe we've started seeing the benefits of that but they have been outweighed by the massive increase in demand – it is not like we didn't have a plan in place.

"Improving EHCP timeliness is a clear priority for the council and this administration. We owe it to the children, young people and their families to deliver a service that is timely and effective and we will continue to monitor progress closely and report openly on the improvements we make.

"I will commit to making sure that everything I have said there is followed up on."

Cllr David Curtis questioned declining year-on-year performance with an increase in "underachieving" elements in the category of safe and strong childhoods.

"After one year of this administration, I find those trends slightly worrying," he said.

Cllr Briggs admitted "I've not looked in detail at every aspect" but struck a dismissive tone in adding: "I could probably pick out a trend that is a reverse, you could cherry pick a couple of lines and make that the case.

"Clearly that's not ideal in the lines you've picked out and we'll be looking to improve that."

Cllr Boad suggested that Cllr Finch and Cllr Briggs were "not on top of a really, really important issue" and was interrupted by the leader who she called "patronising" before asking: "When are you two going to take some responsibility instead of blaming everyone else?"

Cllr Finch referenced the work on the recovery plan, adding: "We understand this is not acceptable, we know that.

"We need to look into what's gone on, we all know that yes, we are politically in charge of this organisation but things go on that are not necessarily our doing.

"We need to make sure we are on that and see what is going on."

His further references to national issues then led to Cllr Finch and Cllr Boad raising their voices to speak over each other, with Cllr Finch suggesting Reform could "remove all opposition councillors from this room".

"Constitutionally, we don't need you here," he said.

"We invite you here because we want scrutiny, we want people to look through our stuff."

The exchange continued with Cllr Boad sarcastically applauding and Cllr Finch suggesting that she had "gone mad".

On the periphery of the unedifying spectacle, the publicly-funded political assistants appointed by Reform UK and the Lib Dems seemed far more able to get along, chatting and laughing while councillors mixed taking decisions with taking aim at one another.