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Almost 1,200 complaints were made to Lancashire County Council in the space of a year about its services for children and young people with special educational needs and disabilities (SEND).
The figure – an unwanted record for the authority – was racked up during the 12 months to July 2024.
Meanwhile, an enquiries helpline set up at the start of September to field calls from the families of SEND children was “overwhelmed” within days of launching, a recent meeting of the county council’s children, families and skills scrutiny committee heard.
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The way in which that service operates has been subject to an early overhaul, with County Hall hopeful that improvements should start to be seen around now – including the ability for parents and carers to book a ‘call back’ slot with their own case worker. Staff are also receiving training to help them “manage difficult conversations”.
The complaints tally includes concerns raised over the issuing of education, health and care plans (EHCPs). The personalised documents set out the support local authorities must provide to meet the needs of children who require additional help in order to access education.
In common with a nationwide trend, Lancashire has seen the number of EHCPs rocket in recent years. According to government data, there were 11,258 plans in the county council area as of January this year, compared to 7,287 in January 2020 – a 55 percent increase. The scrutiny committee heard the current figure is closer to 12,000.
A report presented to committee members revealed more than 7,000 EHCPs were “overdue” as of March 2024 – and that it was not possible to “ascertain” the lengthiest wait encountered.
New plans should be issued within 20 weeks, but they also have to be reviewed annually and a decision over whether to amend them or leave them unchanged should be taken within a month.
Paul Turner, Lancashire County Council’s director of education, culture and skills told the committee the authority was “still not timely” when it came to issuing EHCPs and that the response to complaints about that and other issues was “taking too long”.
Mr. Turner said that until the council has more educational psychologists, “there will still be delays in issuing and reviewing plans – and we’re very sorry that that is the case”.
He explained that the demand for assessments remained “extremely high”, adding: “The number of very highly qualified people that are able to fulfil these roles is very few. Proportionately, we do need considerably more.”
Amongst the new staff recruited into County Hall’s SEND service this year are case work staff and six tribunal officers whose aim is to provide mediation before challenges to the authority’s processes end up in court.
Two new staff members are focusing exclusively on complaints – around 100 of which were outstanding at the time of the meeting, down from 160 in March. The county council received 1,182 SEND-related complaints in the year to July.
Committee member John Potter asked Mr. Turner “what more” his department needed in order to improve.
The director said that, having been appointed only earlier this year, he was still in an “exploratory period” and did not yet want to give a “general figure” regarding how many more staff might be required – but pledged to make recommendations at the right time.
The committee was hearing an update on the actions taken to address a complaint upheld by the Local Government and Social Care Ombudsman earlier this year over the failure of the county council in 2022 to issue a final EHCP plan to a teenager moving into sixth form education, which had “significant consequences” for the youngster and caused him and his family “deep distress”. They were faced with having to consider mainstream education for him, when, until that point, he had always been in a special school.
The committee heard three new SEND senior managers were now in place across Lancashire to ensure there was adequate oversight of cases and the implementation of what Mr. Turner described as “basic administrative processes” to prevent issues falling through the cracks when staff were off.
Committee chair Sue Hind said she felt the actions taken would “change the balance…from dissatisfaction to satisfaction [with the service] in the forthcoming months”.
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