Concern is growing over provision for children with special educational needs after new figures revealed that a record number of complaints have been upheld by England’s local government ombudsman this year.
Analysis of the decisions showed that some children with special educational needs and disabilities (Send) had been without a school placement for more than a year.
The rise comes as the Send system struggles with rising need and years of underfunding. Councils across England have racked up huge deficits on their Send budgets amid lengthy delays in issuing Education, Health and Care Plans (EHCPs). These documents set out what educational provision children with the highest needs should receive – requirements which are then often not met.
The number of complaints upheld by England’s local government ombudsman over special needs education has surged by more than 60% since last year.
Between the start of 2023 and mid-July the Local Government and Social Care Ombudsman (LGO) partly or fully upheld 380 complaints, compared with 234 upheld complaints in the same period in 2022 and 167 until mid-July in 2021.
The increase comes despite capacity issues meaning the ombudsman being more selective in the complaints it looks at.
A spokesperson for campaign group SEND Action said: “The huge upsurge in the number of complaints being upheld by the LGO is clear evidence that the Send crisis is out of control. LGO penalties for failing to meet legal duties are tiny compared with meeting the cost of provision and this is unfortunately resulting in abuse of the current system by some local authorities.
“The resulting accountability vacuum is causing serious injustice for disabled children and young people and their families.
“There has been a conspicuous lack of action by the government (including through new proposals under the Send and alternative provision plan) to improve accountability and ensure that local authority decision making is aligned with legal responsibilities.”
Many complaints concern delays caused by a shortage of educational psychologists (EPs), whose assessments are used by councils when drawing up EHCPs.
Research published this summer by the Department for Education (DfE) found that 88% of councils were struggling to recruit EPs, while a third were struggling to retain them.
The Association of Educational Psychologists (AEP) is currently balloting members on industrial action over pay. AEP general secretary Cath Lowther said: “Despite the vital services and support provided by EPs, local authorities are not investing in the profession and are now facing widespread recruitment and retention problems.
“The resulting explosion in EP workloads means that children and young people are waiting far too long to be seen by an EP – or worse, don’t get to see an EP at all.”
The LGO has recently increased the financial remedies it requires councils to pay, and is increasingly asking them to improve their services to as to ensure other parents are not affected by the same issues.
Paul Najsarek, the local government and social care ombudsman, said: “Complaints about Send, and in particular those about Education, Health and Care Plans continue to be one of the largest areas of our work, and one of the areas in which we uphold the highest proportion of complaints. Education and children’s services complaints remain some of our most high-profile cases and over the past year we have published more reports about these areas than any other.”
A DfE spokesperson said: “Every child deserves to have access to education that enables them to enjoy their childhood, achieve good outcomes, and be well prepared for adulthood and employment – and we want to address the issues that can prevent that from happening.
“Our recent improvement plan sets out how we will reform the support system for children with Send, creating consistent high standards across the country, and making sure parents do not have to battle for support.
“We are also putting significant investment into the high-needs budget, which is increasing by a further £440m for 2024/25, bringing total funding to £10.5bn – an increase of over 60% since 2019/20.”
