I didn’t write this immediately because I wanted to give the political leadership enough time to do the necessary.

But it is now Friday morning, and I am tired of waiting. I enjoy being a councillor, it is the greatest privilege of my life.

I entered the world of politics to make a positive difference and I believe I have. But the hardest part of this journey for almost three years now has been around SEND.

I have opened up a lot of old wounds for my family and shared our entire SEND journey with colleagues in hope that they would see how truly awful the journey is for families.

I have lobbied so hard that it is now an assumption at group meetings I am going to raise something SEND related at briefings, even if on occasions I have a different question.

But I go home every time as a ball of frustration feeling like nothing is changing and if it is like we are being told, its certainly not seen or felt by families in need.

I didn’t believe we needed a Lincolnshire report as I felt the problems were obvious, but we went through that process and low and behold none of us were shocked by the recommendations.

I met with Sir Anthony Douglas on his request and spoke to him openly and honestly. Though I also expressed he didn’t need to come in, we knew what the issues were. His findings have been published.

None of the content a surprise apart from one conclusion regarding political leadership. We have now had the Ofsted report.

I am not surprised that the Ofsted report raised leadership. There is certainly a lack of that. I have sat on the education scrutiny committee where, during the meeting, the officers began to pack up and informed us they have a team meeting to attend.

Such disdain for politicians and the scrutiny function oozed out of this moment. We had an expectation that officers were answerable to us and would stay for the whole meeting but officers clearly didn’t think it was important.

After that meeting some of us expressed our concerns that this council is becoming too officer led and politicians have lost control of the situation.

This is just one of multiple examples I have of what we have had to deal with and unfortunately this has been allowed to go on by weak political leadership that has allowed officers to walk all over us.

I speak to friends regularly about the difficulty when you’re in a political group and not everything goes your way.

They remind me that being part of a group means I will have to accept I won’t get my way all the time and I will need to occasionally bend. I do bend and step back for the greater good when needed.

But when something is keeping me awake at night then it’s no good being a team player. I am selling my soul to the devil.

This Ofsted report has kept me awake at night and I told myself there wasn’t anything more I could personally do.

But then I stayed awake for another night and another night. I don’t believe I have done everything.

Doing everything would require me to be publicly honest and not just lobby it from behind the scenes.

A political resignation or sacking needs to happen today. Who that is, I will leave to the conscience of the leader of the council.

I do not accept that with a change of officer leadership alone all will now magically move us forward at the pace we need.

I am a Conservative councillor and part of the Conservative group. But above that I am a parent of SEND children that has been let down like many other families.

My loyalty is with those families. If that means that I am now kicked out of the group for speaking the truth, then so be it.

I need to be able to look my children in the eyes and know I did the right thing. I also need to be able to sleep at night.

Sam Murray is a Conservative councillor at Suffolk County Council and Ipswich Borough Council