27 November 2024

The Local Government and Social Care Ombudsman (LGSCO) – the last port of call for complaints about the actions of individual local authorities – has published its three-yearly report on its investigations of local public service failures. 

Known as the Triennial Review, the report summarises the main problems in the local government and social care sectors based on the complaints the Ombudsman has investigated over the last three years. 

One of the most startling aspects of the Triennial Review is the extent to which the Ombudsman’s work is dominated by complaints about support for children and young people with SEND – and the extent to which the Ombudsman finds local authorities to be at fault. 

• One in four complaints to the Ombudsman in 2023-24 were about SEND provision . 

• The Ombudsman finds local authorities to be at fault in 92% of the SEND complaints they investigate. 

• The issues that keep coming up are widespread failures to complete new EHC plans or annual reviews in good time, and to deliver the provision set out in a child or young person’s EHC plan. 

As the report says: “A situation where we are upholding nearly 100% of complaints cannot be one that is working for children and their families.” 

The LGSCO is frank about the limitations of their role and their power. They remain emphatic that, in order to serve all children with SEND in state-funded schools, they need to be allowed to investigate support for children with SEND who don’t have an EHC plan and to look at key decisions around admissions and exclusions. 

IPSEA’s Policy Manager, Catriona Moore, said: 

“The number of SEND-related complaints the LGSCO investigates and upholds demonstrates clearly that the system that should be supporting children and young people with SEND is instead failing far too many of them. 

“We strongly support the LGSCO’s call to be allowed to investigate a wider range of actions and decisions by schools affecting children with SEND. This would improve accountability for decision-making, which is currently one of the biggest weaknesses in the SEND system and the reason so many children and young people don’t get the support they need and are entitled to by law. 

“The case for extending the LGSCO’s remit to include what happens in schools has been clearly made over a number of years. We hope that the current government will listen and take action.”