There are different ways that you can take action when things go wrong with a local authority (LA).

If you have a letter from the LA which says you can mediate or appeal its decision to the SEND Tribunal, please see our information on appealing to the SEND Tribunal.

If not, the first step will be to tell the LA about the issue and ask it to resolve it. We suggest you write to the Director of Children’s Services to do this. We may have a template letter that could help you.

Even if the issue relates to a young person rather than a child, the Director of Children’s Services is the person to raise matters relating to special educational needs and disabilities (SEND) and education support with. You can find details of your LA online and the contact details for the Director of Children’s Services of each LA on this website.

When you write to the Director of Children’s Services, it may help to copy in the LA’s monitoring officer, your ward councillor and the LA case worker or officer you have been dealing with.

Keep a copy and proof of delivery of any letter or email you send.

What else you should do, depends on the issue and how urgent it is:

When complaining would work

Where the LA’s formal complaints procedure could realistically solve the problem, you should follow it. You can do this in addition to writing the Director of Children’s Services using one of our template letters if we have one relevant to your situation.

How to complain should be explained in your LA’s local offer. If the LA has not put its complaints policy on the website then ask for a copy of the complaints procedure from your case worker/its office.

The LA’s complaints policy/procedure should set out the time limit the LA has for replying to a complaint – if your situation is urgent and the LA’s timescales for dealing with a complaint would take too long to resolve it, it could be better to take a different type of action instead of complaining. Please see the below information on when complaining would not work.

If one of our template letters is relevant to your situation, you can use the information in it to help explain your concerns but if you want your concern to be treated as a formal complaint make sure you follow the LA’s complaints procedure too. For example, if your LA requires complaints to be submitted via an online form you should copy and paste relevant sections of the template letter into the form.

The LA’s complaints procedure will tell you who to send your complaint to or how to submit it. 

Formal complaints should be made in writing, in line with your LA’s complaints procedure. Make sure you keep a copy of your complaint and something which proves it was delivered. For example;

• If complaining by email, save a copy of the sent email.
• If complaining by letter, use recorded delivery, or ask for a receipt if delivered by hand, and make sure you keep a copy for your own records.
• If you send your complaint using an online form and it's not clear whether you will receive a copy of it, take screen shots of the completed webpages before you click submit.

If you complain to the LA but this does not solve the problem, you can complain to the Local Government and Social Care Ombudsman or, if the issue is now urgent or cannot be solved otherwise, you may be able to challenge the LA’s decision or actions through a process called judicial review instead.

When complaining would not work

Sometimes, following the LA’s complaints procedure will not be a realistic and effective way of solving the issue. For example, when an LA is acting unlawfully, the issue is serious and urgent and the complaints process would take too long to resolve it. Perhaps because, the LA won’t make sure a compulsory school age child out of school receives suitable, full-time education or a child or young person is not getting important special educational provision set out in their EHC plan, for example.

When the complaints procedure would not be a realistic and effective way of solving the issue, we recommend you alert the LA to the issue (see if one of our template letters would help) and take advice on starting a process called judicial review  instead of making a formal complaint.   

If you need further advice, you can book an advice line appointment with IPSEA, use our call-in service or take advice and get help with judicial review from a legal aid provider or other organisation.