To the Secretary of State for Education, Gavin Williamson –
Over the last five years, I have sent numerous communications to Department of Education (DfE) Government Ministers Party Leaders and MP’s across all parties from all 4 nations, Regulators with information and evidence demonstrating that flaws in the Government’s policies and procedures when it came to dealing with bullying and violence complaints in schools were responsible for harm to numerous children and the deaths of many others with evidence that these incidents of harm and death continue to occur regularly and will likely continue to do so without changes to laws and policies to better protect children across the UK.
Much of the evidence of the alleged failures have been verified by the DfE itself, Ministers and MP’s the Judiciary, the Police, regulators as well as the National Media. The DfE, Ministers, MP’s and regulators have all had opportunities to act on the evidence and information to potentially prevent many of the incidents that have led to harm and deaths and potential further deaths that have openly failed to take numerous opportunities presented to them to do so.
As a result our campaign group of over 100 families with now more than 20 of those having lost children to suicide having provided evidence that they were failed by the state are now calling for a Public Inquiry into the Bullying complaints policies, processes and procedures of schools, authorities, regulators and the Department for Education and the alleged failures of all those involved, to establish the facts of exactly what happened in many of the cases where children were harmed and lives were lost where failures were alleged to have played a part to ensure that lessons can be learnt and that no other children are harmed or lives lost in the future as a result.
As the Secretary of State we are now placing you in a unique position to potentially protect millions of children from across the UK from harm and prevent deaths, where others in the past have chosen not to act and in doing so allowed further incidents of harm and deaths to occur. These are the children of fellow Ministers and MP’s, the Judiciary, Journalists and constituents all who have a stake in a public Inquiry and all who have the power to make a difference but not the power that you have to potentially make the biggest difference of all to millions of families across the country by establishing a Public Inquiry..
I would ask that you respond as promptly as possible to let us know when a Public Inquiry would take place.
Yours faithfully
Jason Barnett
Safer Schools UK Campaign lead