A council chief was forced to defend the way the public was consulted on replacing 35 children’s centres around Bucks with nine hubs, after it was slammed as “flawed”.

Four backbench county councillors – Julia Wassell, Chaudhary Ditta, Martin Farrow and Niknam Hussain – called in the decision by Bucks County Council’s cabinet to go ahead with the proposed changes after they deemed the consultation process to be “faulty”.

The call-in was discussed at a meeting of Bucks County Council’s children’s social care and learning select committee for more than two hours last Friday morning (February 2).

Cllr Wassell, who attended the meeting with campaigner Alka Dass, as well as Cllrs Matt Knight and Martin Farrow, blasted the consultation as “flawed”, saying it was “misleading”.

She said: “I feel the public consultation was misleading, leading to the invalid and inaccurate results used in the decision making process.

“This document should have been honest about the intention to reduce by closing children’s centres so that all stakeholders could have made their views clear from the outset.”

The changes will see team bases at seven of the existing children’s centres along with the remaining two areas – Quarrendon and Buckingham – currently being assessed for “appropriate locations”.

Council bosses said the future of the remaining 28 buildings would be decided with local communities, schools and early years providers.

Mrs Dass, of campaign group Save Buckinghamshire’s Children’s Centres, also spoke at the meeting, saying parents and users of the centre were “upset” and “afraid of losing the services that are provided by the centres”.

She said: “In my own experience of the consultation, firstly it was not clear what was actually being proposed – that certain services would be lost and also that the hubs would actually replace the centres.

“Like many others I thought the hubs were going to be an addition to the children’s centres.

“Quite a lot of the parents I spoke with didn’t even realise that by early help you were referring to their children’s centre, which was misleading.

“They also thought a family support worker was going to be added to the centres.”

But cabinet member for children’s services Cllr Warren White insisted that the public and all stakeholders were well-informed of the consultation, adding that he launched a second phase to the consultation as he realised the first stage “wasn’t good enough”.

He said: “I’m really disappointed with some of the comments made because I do think that they are disingenuous in part, but I do fully accept that the first stage of the consultation wasn’t good enough and that’s why we launched a second stage.

“I was very clear with the team that we had to have a good solid consultation.

“It’s very clear that the public and press understood that because the headlines were there for all to see.

“The public definitely knew it because they took part in a very well publicised protest so I don’t agree that no-one knew this was happening or what it was about.

“If anything, the consultation was being skewed towards the children’s centres, forgetting about the wider picture of early help.

“I am pleased though that interest in the subject was raised and a lot of people took part. I’m satisfied that because of the interest that was raised and the protests that the chances to submit views for the consultations were there.”

The majority of the committee voted to reject the call in, which means the plans will go ahead.