Payouts by Cornwall Council to families as a result of complaints about its service for the Duchy’s most vulnerable pupils has rocketed by £40,000 in just a year, writes Local Democracy Reporter Lee Trewhela

A meeting of the council’s standards committee heard today (Thursday, April 25) that much of the problem is down to unfair funding from central government, meaning Cornwall gets far less financial support for children with special educational needs and disabilities than other local authorities.

The committee was discussing a noticeable increase in complaints to the Local Government and Social Care Ombudsman (LGSCO) relating to Cornwall Council’s Inclusion & SEND Service – for those children and young people with additional needs and/or disabilities. Concerns have been raised at the council around the budgetary impact of payments being awarded to families as a result of LGSCO decisions.

Complaints – and payouts – have increased between last year and this year. In 2022/23 the number of complaints that received a final decision around education, inclusion and SEND was three. In 2023/24 that has increased to 14.

Most shockingly, council payouts to parents as a result of upheld decisions increased from £2,805 in 2022/23 to £44,375 in 2023/24.

The percentage of children with Education, Health and Care Plans (EHCPs) in Cornwall has always been less than the national average. However, earlier identification of need means the Duchy is now moving closer to the national average. This has combined with post-Covid increases in requests for needs assessments seen nationally.

Demand for EHCPs in the Duchy has increased by approximately 48 per cent since 2019/20. The service has seen a steep rise in younger (five to 10-year-olds) children and older (20 to 25-year-olds) young people seeking help and an increase in specialist provision due to a change in the profile and complexity of need.

The total number of EHCPs currently in place in Cornwall is 4,250, with the council receiving an average of 45 needs assessment requests every week.

Rachel Delourme, the council’s head of inclusion and SEND, said that Cornwall is one of the lowest-funded local authorities for special educational and disability needs.

Based on published funding data for 2024/25, Cornwall will receive annual high-needs funding per child (aged two to 18) of £727.48, while the funding per child in Middlesbrough is £1,244.05. This ranks Cornwall Council as the 142nd lowest funded out of 151 authorities. Our statistical neighbours, local authorities with similar characteristics, are due to receive an average £87.47 per child, per year more than Cornwall.

Cllr Loveday Jenkin, who sits on a working group which was set up to tackle the high number of complaints, said: “We were very well convinced that this was a capacity issue not a managing complaints issue – doubling the amount of work that needs to be done without doubling the staff means inevitably things are falling over. There needs to be longer-term additional resource – that’s something for the full council to look at.

“There doesn’t seem to be any way of delivering the service that is needed on the funding that is received, with the staff that we had. We’re at a crunch point – something needs to be done.”

Cllr John Conway added: “We will be getting more complaints as the demand is high and we’re really restricted for places. The whole system is creaking. We need to support the team which is doing the best it can with the resources it’s got. We also need to find a way nationally for more to be put in the system so these vulnerable people who are desperate for help get the help they need, and that help needs to be reasonably local, which is particularly pertinent for Cornwall.”

Ms Delourme said the SEND transformation plan for Cornwall includes Bosvena, a specialist social, emotional and mental health school in Bodmin. “It will be six years this year since we had permission for that school to be built. There’s not yet a spade in the ground. That is a concern.”

The standards committee acknowledged that the increased number of complaints is linked to resource within the service to undertake its statutory duties. It recommended that further work is undertaken by officers and the children’s and families overview and scrutiny committee, as part of the 2025/26 budget-setting process, to identify ongoing resources and fairer funding to enable the service to continue its work.

The meeting heard that the council’s SEND department is implementing additional resource, including more staff, which should lead to improvements in the number of complaints.