'We are broken': Surge in complaints over SEN support

Families have told ITV News their children have been suicidal in mainstream schools, leaving them with no choice but to take them out of education

By Political Reporter Jasmine Cameron-Chileshe and Political Producer Elisa Menendez

Some readers may find the details in this report distressing.

"Trying to keep this very delicate house of cards from toppling over some days feels impossible - it's really hard to see any light at the end of the tunnel."

For parents Anna Jeevanjee and Iain MacEwan, getting support for their eight-year-old autistic son Charlie has felt like an uphill struggle.

They have been battling Surrey County Council since the summer of last year when their son suffered a breakdown.

Anna told ITV News: "He said: 'I just want to die. I don't want to be me anymore. I don't want to be Charlie'. And I think that's when we glimpsed how much he'd been struggling internally...

"And since that day, July 31, he's never gone back to how he was."

Charlie had already been on an NHS waiting list for an autism assessment for months but following his breakdown, his parents desperately tried to find a private psychiatrist. Some months later, he was finally diagnosed as autistic.

When he went back to school in September last year, it soon became clear school could not give him the support he needed and he hasn't been able to attend since July.

Anna said: "We were wrestling him into school effectively. We were having to sometimes carry him in. He would have to be prized off us."

"We assumed we were doing the right thing by kind of forcing him in," she added, explaining how it was only when they had a meeting with the school at the end of term that they found out Charlie had barely been in class.

"School said, well, as you know, he's not been in school, he's not been in class. He's only been in the classroom for 12% of the time and he's been climbing the fence every day. And we said, 'no, we didn't know any of that'."

Anna and Iain say they applied for an Education, Health and Care Plan (EHCP) - which would assess Charlie and outline the support he'd get from the council - but it was refused. After they appealed, they say the council eventually conceded.

But they say the EHCP he eventually received - after just one telephone assessment with a psychiatrist - does not meet his needs and says he can cope at school.

They are now taking Surrey to a tribunal in September 2026. By then, Charlie will have been out of school for two years.

"It is heartbreaking to not really be able to give him any idea of when he might be back in a school environment that suits him," said Anna. "And children have no sense of time. So I don't really know what he thinks his future looks like, but it must feel incredibly bleak."

"We are broken and that's not necessarily a word I use lightly," she added.

Anna and Iain aren't alone in their frustrations. Charlie is one of thousands of children with special educational needs out of school across England.

ITV News has spent months speaking with families trying to access support for their children with special educational needs (SEN). What has emerged is a picture of struggling local authorities and desperate parents.   

Demand for SEN provisions has soared in recent years. More than 1.6 million pupils across England were reported to have special educational needs by the end of the last academic year - an increase of 101,000 since 2023, according to government data.

Meanwhile, the number of pupils with an EHCP – a legal document outlining the needs of a young person under 25 and the support they require from the council - has increased by 140% between 2015 and and 2024, according to the National Audit Office.  

Rise in complaints

As demand has risen, so has pressure on councils with families complaining about a lack of support for their children.

ITV News has spent months speaking with families trying to access support for their children - and what has emerged is a picture of struggling local authorities and desperate parents.   

Data from the Local Government and Social Care Ombudsman, shared exclusively with ITV News, shows the number of complaints and enquiries it's received about councils' special educational needs support across England has surged from 549 in 2018/19 to 1,998 in 2023/24.

Surrey County Council was the worst offender over the six-year-period. The Ombudsman received 348 complaints about the council - the highest across the county. There were 302 complaints regarding Kent County Council, 192 about Suffolk County Council, followed by Essex County Council and Derbyshire County Council.

In cases where complaints were upheld - meaning the local authority was found to be at fault following an investigation - councils were forced to pay compensation to families, with the five most complained about councils paying upwards of half a million pounds in 2023/4 alone.

According to publicly available data, in the last financial year, Surrey County Council paid more than £200,000 to families. In one instance, for example, a family was paid £12,486 for delaying the completion of a child’s EHCP and failing to put in place the necessary provisions.

The Ombudsman said, in a new report, over 90% of enquiries involving SEN were upheld, with councils' inability to carry out EHCP assessments and reviews a common theme among complainants.

'We can't give up because if we don't fight for our children nobody else will'

Joanne Polley received £600 in compensation after she complained directly to Surrey County Council over delays in assessing her 13-year-old daughter Emily, who is autistic.

Emily was diagnosed as autistic in the summer of Year 6 and started mainstream school that September. Despite her school's best efforts to make adjustments, Emily struggled.

"She'd spend a lot of break times in the toilet crying," Jo, who is a cancer nurse said. "It's a very big school, lots of children, very overwhelming, lots of sensory overload and she would come home at the end of the day exhausted."

Jo applied for an EHCP in May 2023 to access support for Emily but she says the local authority refused to issue one. She is taking the council to tribunal in September 2025.

In February, Jo made the difficult decision to take Emily out of school.

'This is her telling us she would rather end her life than be in this situation'

"My daughter has mentioned that she would rather die than have to go to school," said Jo.

"This isn't a case of my daughter deciding that she doesn't want to go to school and us saying, 'okay, fine, don't go', this is her telling us that she would rather end her life than be in that situation."

Jo's message to the thousands of other parents in her situation is to "not give up".

"It's really hard and there are times when you just feel like giving up because it feels impossible," she said.

"You're fighting a huge system, you're up against local authorities, county councils that don't have the funds unfortunately to manage the situations that we found ourselves in.

"But it's really important not to give up. We can't give up because if we don't fight for our children nobody else will."

SEN system 'not working for children, families or local authorities'

SEN is fast rising up the political agenda, with the issue gaining traction among newly-elected MPs in particular. “It’s among the most common issues in the inbox,” one Labour MP told ITV News.   

“It’s clear a lot of families are at breaking point,” another newly-elected Lib Dem MP remarked.  

The government pledged nearly £1 billion in high-needs funding in the Budget, with Chancellor Rachel Reeves telling MPs that ministers were “committed to reforming special educational needs provision", improving outcomes and ensuring the system is “financially sustainable”.  

But many within the sector warn this latest funding uplift is only a fraction of what is needed.   

According to the National Audit Office, the UK's independent public spending watchdog, nationwide spending on SEN services reached £10.7 billion during 2024-25. But they warned there could be a £4.6 billion deficit by March 2026.  

Earlier this year, the County Councils Network estimated that 26 councils may have to declare bankruptcy in 2027, if SEN deficits are placed onto their books.   

Alongside additional funding, experts say a widespread shakeup of SEN support provided by schools, the NHS and local authorities, is needed.   

The Ombudsman has called on the government to grant them more powers to, for example, investigate the implementation of EHC plans in schools and investigate cases where children with complex needs are excluded from schools.   

“For a number of years, we have repeatedly made our position clear," a spokesperson said. "The system is simply not working for children, families or local authorities: the money available is not sufficient to provide the services that children are entitled to, many organisations are severely understaffed, and, in many areas, suitable and affordable support does not exist."

This is echoed by the Local Government Association who argue that reform of SEN services is “unavoidable”.  

“We are calling for urgent action which builds new capacity and creates inclusion in mainstream settings, supported by adequate and sustainable long-term funding, and the writing off of councils’ high needs deficits,” they told ITV News.

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'Stuck between a rock and a hard place': The challenges facing councils

In response to our findings, councils say they remain committed to supporting families.   

Councillor Clare Curran, Cabinet Member for Children, Families and Lifelong Learning in Surrey said the council had invested £15 million into a three-year multi-agency recovery plan, which aimed to reduce complaints.   

“This is against a backdrop of a growing demand for services, with Local Authorities nationally having seen a very significant increase in the number of children with EHCPs in recent years,” she added. “This includes in Surrey, where the number of EHCPs has nearly doubled between 2017 and 2023.”

Derbyshire County Councillor Alex Dale - who's also chair of SEN campaigning group f40 - said he fully acknowledges "we're not where we need to be".

"The first thing I can do is apologise that our SEN system locally is not doing well enough," he told ITV News. It's not been good enough...

"We've been trying to invest in additional staff, which, as I say, is really difficult because of the pressures on budgets, restructuring services, improving processes."

"I think councils in this scenario are absolutely in a rock and a hard place situation," he added, "and there are really real competing demands there between providing for the needs that we all want to provide for the children and families and then facing the responsibility of having difficult budgets to manage."

Kent County Council, which has one of the highest local authority populations in the country, said they had invested an additional £2 million with the aim of increasing capacity in SEN services and tackling backlogs in assessments and annual reviews.

Essex County Council said they had been “transparent” about the need to improve the SEN system in Essex, adding that “good process” was being made.

“However, local government finances can only stretch so far,” Tony Ball, Essex County Council’s Cabinet Member for Education Excellence, Lifelong Learning told ITV News. “As recent reports show, there are underlying issues deep-rooted within the national SEN system that urgently need to be addressed too." 

Suffolk County Council did not respond to our requests for a statement.

The Department for Education said it recognised that the SEN system was “too skewed towards specialist provision and over-reliant on EHC plans”, which resulted in only those families with the “resources to fight" getting the right support.

“We are determined to rebuild families’ confidence in a system so many rely on,” a spokesperson added. “The reform families are crying out for will take time, but with a greater focus on mainstream provision and more early intervention, we will deliver the change that is so desperately needed.”  

How to get help if you have been affected by the issues mentioned in this article:

• Doctors of the World advice line - 08081647686

• CALM (Campaign Against Living Miserably) - Helpline: 0800 58 58 58

• MIND provides advice and support to empower anyone experiencing a mental health problem. Information line: 0300 123 3393

• Samaritans is an organisation offering confidential support for people experiencing feelings of distress or despair. Phone 116 123 (a free 24 hour helpline).

• Shout is a 24/7 text service, free on all major mobile networks, for anyone struggling to cope and in need of immediate help. Text SHOUT to 85258.

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