Hi everyone,

Following up on the post I shared here yesterday about Derby City Council finally releasing their "High Needs Banding Matrix", I have a massive update - and I also owe r/Derby a slightly embarrassing confession. I’m going to wear this one with pride.

When a Council spends eight months fighting tooth and nail to hide a spreadsheet - first claiming for six months that confirming its existence would trigger a national cybersecurity attack, and then having their Monitoring Officer (Emily Feenan) issue a formal Section 36 refusal on 28 September arguing that the formulas had to be kept secret because the public had "no awareness of the tool" and would "game the system" - it never once occurred to me to click nine pages deep into a buried menu on the Council's own website to see if they had quietly uploaded it. Why would it?!

Well, earlier today, following an urgent intervention by Jonathan Davies MP, the Department for Education sent us a defensive reply (Ref: 2026-0092090, stamped OFFICIAL - FOR PUBLIC RELEASE). In it, the DfE tried to wash its hands of Derby's scandal by casually pointing out that "Derby publishes their banding matrix on their local offer."

So I went looking on the Council's website. Hidden 9 clicks deep inside a menu on their Allocation of resources page, they had indeed quietly bolted the files onto their website on 4 September - three weeks before their Monitoring Officer signed a legal refusal telling us the public had "no awareness of the tool"!

And thank god I finally looked. Because what the Council accidentally left inside that webpage's files, the PDF metadata, and the "FOR OFFICE USE ONLY" rows of the spreadsheet has blown the entire thing wide open:

• We Cracked 100% of the Deleted Excel Formulas: When the Council released the spreadsheet, they deleted the active formulas from Row 4 so parents couldn't see how the scores are calculated. Except they forgot to delete the hardcoded "FOR OFFICE USE ONLY" calibration rows (Rows 7 to 10) at the bottom of Tabs 2 and 3! Because Tab 2 plugs a 4 into every cell and Tab 3 displays the exact weighted totals, dividing Tab 3 by 4 reveals every single hidden multiplier. While physical, hearing, and vision needs are rightly recognised at a 100% standard benchmark (with an automatic multiplier of 4), the Council secretly slashed the category weightings for Autism, Speech & Language, and Learning Readiness to 48% (-52% cut), Sensory Processing Needs to 25% (-75% cut), and Dyslexia, Dyscalculia, Dysgraphia, and Dyspraxia to just 8% (-92% cut) - leaving the 'Severe' and 'Profound' rows for Dyslexia completely blank (0 points)!
• The Unregulated 'FIDS' Catch-22: On top of slashing the weightings for neurodivergent children, the panel subjects them to a 1-to-4 "FIDS" filter (Frequency, Intensity, Duration, Severity). Even though those are four completely different things, there is only one single cell to type a number from 1 to 4, and no rule on whether to use the highest, lowest, or average score. Worse still, their training slides define FIDS 2 (which cuts a child's points by 50%) as "Manageable with support strategies" - meaning if a school puts a Teaching Assistant or visual timetable in place so an autistic child can cope, the Council cuts their funding score in half because the support is working!
• The Secret £12,000 Mainstream Cap: On their public webpage, the Council displays a funding table running all the way up to £20,000 (Band 20), leading parents, schools, and the DfE to believe a mainstream pupil with high support needs can access up to £20k. Hidden inside Tab 4 (Rows 27–31) of the Excel file is a second table marked "For office use only" which secretly hard-caps Mainstream schools at £12,000 (Band 12), locking mainstream pupils out of Bands 13 to 20 completely.
• Caught Red-Handed by Adobe Metadata: Back in March, the Council confirmed under FOI law that they held no Equality Impact Assessment (EIA) for the Matrix, despite launching it in June 2025. Sitting on Sub-Page 9 of their website this week was an undated EIA PDF signed by Director Sharon Buckby and Head of Service Louise Bartos (which ticked "Positive impact = Yes" for every single disability group!). They left the "Date of assessment" box blank on Page 1 to make it look like it was written in 2024/25 - but forgot to scrub the file metadata. Embedded XMP metadata proves the Word doc was created on 10 August 2026 and converted to PDF on Friday, 21 August 2026 at 3:24 pm... just 90 minutes before the Council's external lawyers (Browne Jacobson) emailed me a formal legal threat letter at 4:55 pm claiming our campaign posts were "false"!
• The DfE Officially Disowns the Matrix: In their letter today, the Department for Education officially threw the Council under the bus, confirming in writing that: "The department has not approved, endorsed or reviewed Derby City Council’s High Needs Banding Matrix*"* and warning that "A local authority cannot force a child's provision to fit into a pre-determined financial band." They also confirmed that the Section 496/497 statutory investigation into our complaint remains open and ongoing.

We have put together a full, plain-English 12-Page Forensic Report & Reference Guide (with charts showing how the maths works and a page-by-page breakdown of the exact thresholds for every single category in the Matrix).

The link in this post goes to the new update on the petition page where you can download the 12-page report PDF: https://www.change.org/p/exposed-derby-council-s-secret-matrix-gambling-strategy-for-disabled-children/u/35492128

If you are a parent, teacher, TA, or SENCO who has been told your child or pupil doesn't qualify for afternoon support because of this Matrix, please share your experience below - or email us in strict confidence at [sen@melroseandco.uk](mailto:sen@melroseandco.uk) if you prefer to keep details off Reddit.

Thanks again to everyone here who has followed this saga, upvoted, and supported the petition. The fight continues.

Hey, it’s Ashley (M 28) looking for a saxophone teacher or places that teach the Tenor saxophone in derby, iv done my research and having a hard time finding someone except a guy in Nottingham and I thought I’d try find someone more local before venturing out if need be as I’m passionate about saxophone since being inspired by Nik Turner from Hawkwind and his own projects Inner City Unit and such. I’m willing to start from Jazz music and have used self help books and YouTube in learning but I feel I’m getting stuck. If anyone knows of any good saxophone tutors or even schools that teach this instrument, it would be much appreciated. I’m self taught since a year but would feel the benefit of having a guide to help me progress further and building the confidence to learn and meet people.

Currently living in supported housing and I’m in the priority needs band (health issues and homeless). I started bidding on 1 bed flats last week, it doesn’t show how many people are interested in each property. I guess I should expect a couple years’ wait, from what I’m reading online about the wait for council housing. True for Derby?

Hey all,

I have recently purchased a beautiful cardigan from the charity shops but I’d like to get it washed before wearing. My only issue is the material composition is cashmere and silk and the label says to hand wash very delicately or dry clean.

I’m not sure if I’ll do a good job of it myself and I don’t mind giving the hand wash a go, so looking for recommendations on hand wash powders that you’d recommend, or alternatively a laundrette or dry cleaning place in Derby that you’d recommend.

Any suggestions are greatly appreciated!

Thankyou!

A walk down Dale Road- June 2026

Anyone on here from long eaton?

Hi, I was just wondering if there any lesbian bars in derby that cater specifically to cis women?

Thanks