Sheffield Council improves services for young people after ombudsman upholds complaint on SEND service

The Local Government and Social Care Ombudsman upheld a complaint that Sheffield City Council’s education and children’s services failed to meet a young woman’s care and support needs following problems with their care provider.

Because of the problems with care services and lack of appropriate support, the young person – referred to as Ms C in the ombudsman’s report – could not attend college due to her anxiety and depression.

The ombudsman decided that council failed to properly review Ms C’s education, health and care plan between 2016 and 2021 and did not provide her with education from September 2017 to 2021 as it failed to consider any alternatives.

The council has apologised to the young woman and her mother and compensated them. It has also agreed to talk through the findings of the report and an internal investigation with them.

As a result of the ombudsman’s findings and a critical Ofsted report, the council was required to improve its services that help young people with special educational needs and disabilities (SEND) make the transition from childhood to adulthood.

‘Insufficient support and planning’

A report made to the council’s strategy and resources committee said: “It was clear that support was required earlier in a young person’s journey to adulthood to shift the approach from crisis intervention triggered by insufficient support and planning, to longer-term, person-centred support and planning for adulthood.

“It was acknowledged that there was an opportunity to change the culture and practice surrounding transitions for young people from the age of 14 to 25 years by placing transitions planning at the heart of a young person’s support planning rather than leaving it too late and as an ‘add on’.”

A new transitions team of seven social workers and care managers have been recruited to help young people from the age of 18 to 25 develop theirindependence and autonomy.

They will also work with young people who have reached 25 and may need further support.

A separate ‘preparation for adulthood’ team will be working with under-18s.

A plan for the way forward had to be put in place quickly and is being monitored by the Department for Education for nine months.

The report said: “As the plan progresses, the emphasis will increasingly be on ensuring that the voice of young people and their carers are at the centre of our evidence about whether the actions are improving the experience and outcomes.”

Joe Horobin, the council’s director of integrated commissioning, told the committee: “We’re aiming to really improve the experience of children and young people in the transition to adulthood.”

The council’s Green Party group leader Douglas Johnson said: “Is there really – given that it takes a lot of bad practice to get to the ombudsman issuing a report, they don’t do this lightly – is there actually an understanding of what we did wrong?”

‘It’s time that the council put its hand up’

Ms Horobin replied: “I think it is reasonable to say there there has been a quite thorough investigation over quite a period of time and I understand that colleagues continue to work really closely with the young person and their parent.

“I think there has been a huge amount of learning and that learning has been reflected in the changes that we have made over the last 18 months.

“Those changes in the reshaping of our services to better meet the needs of children and young people and their families I think will take time and we will continue to monitor them very closely.”

She said that the changes are helping the council to work closely with health and education colleagues and other organisations.

Most importantly, they are working with children, young people and their families to ensure the services delivered are what they need.

Coun Mick Rooney (Labour, Woodhouse) said: “I think it’s time, quite frankly, that the council put its hand up and said that for a number of years we haven’t done some of the most vulnerable children in the city justice with their needs and there are a number of reasons for that.

“Some of it is organisational, some of it is to do with quality of our providers, some is to do with the fact that for a number of years we’ve had to cut back on budgets.

“If you put all of that into a mix, then you get a bad result. And unfortunately the bad result is that for a number of years a lot of children in this service have been let down because during their formative years they’ve not received the service that they should have done.

“And I think that at some stage we need to admit that as a council.

“The thing that really concerns me is the length of time it took for us to realise we were letting this particular individual down and I’m concerned that other families may have gone through a similar experience to this but not taken it to the point of making an official complaint to the ombudsman.”

He said that concerns that had been raised about the SEND service via the council’s former scrutiny committee weren’t really acted upon, which was frustrating.

He stressed the need to act early on issues that families are facing.

Coun Angela Argenzio (Green, Broomhill and Sharrow Vale) said departments must speak to each other so people don’t get caught in the middle.

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