Cash-strapped Cheshire East Council has come under fire for not taking back and refurbishing specialist equipment required by children who have since outgrown it.

The matter came to light during this week's meeting of the children and families committee.

Cllr Jos Saunders (Poynton, Con) said she knows of a case where a school was given a special chair for a child and, when the child became too big for it, Cheshire East didn't take it back and the school sold it.

"How do we get round this because I don't think it's appropriate for that to happen," she said.

"Does the child own the equipment? Does the school own the equipment? Because if the child owns the equipment they're going to get too big for it, so what are we going to do about upcycling or recycling or whatever?"

Director of education Claire Williamson said she had looked into the matter, as Cllr Saunders had mentioned it previously, and she was now working with officers in the council's adult services.

Adult services has a recycling/refurbishment policy, so Ms Williamson said this could be brought in for children's specialist equipment too, to see if it could be modified for a different child to use in the future.

Speaking after the meeting, Cllr Saunders told the Local Democracy Reporting Service: "Last week it was mobile phones, this week it appears to be equipment."

She was referring to the recent publicity around Cheshire East paying for 3,000 mobile phones for its staff although 500 of those hadn't been used for several months.

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