East Sussex County Council
Complaint overview
Between 1 April 2024 to 31 March 2025, we dealt with 106 complaints. Of these, 22 were not for us or not ready for us to investigate. We assessed and closed 56 complaints. We investigated 28 complaints.
More about this data
Complaints dealt with – the total number of complaints and enquiries considered. It is not appropriate to investigate all of them.
Not for us – includes complaints brought to us before the council was given chance to consider it, or the complainant came to the wrong Ombudsman.
Assessed and closed – includes complaints where the law says we’re not allowed to investigate, or it would be a poor use of public funds if we did.
Investigated – we completed an investigation and made a decision on whether we found fault, or no fault.
Complaints upheld – we completed an investigation and found evidence of fault, or the organisation provided a suitable remedy early on.
Satisfactory remedies provided by the Council – the council upheld the complaint and we agreed with how it offered to put things right.
Compliance with Ombudsman recommendations – not complying with our recommendations is rare. A council with a compliance rate below 100% should scrutinise the complaints where it failed to comply and identify any learning.
Average performance rates – we compare the annual statistics of similar types of councils to work out an average level of performance. We do this for County Councils, District Councils, Metropolitan Boroughs, Unitary Councils, and London Boroughs.
For more information on understanding our statistics see Interpreting our complaints data.
Complaints dealt with
Not for us
Assessed and closed
Investigated
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Complaints upheld
We investigated 28 complaints and upheld 21.
75% of complaints we investigated were upheld.
This compares to an average of 89% in similar authorities.
View upheld decisionsAdjusted for East Sussex County Council's population, this is 3.8 upheld decisions per 100,000 residents.
The average for authorities of this type is
5.3 upheld decisions per 100,000 residents. -
Satisfactory remedies provided by the Council
In 4 out of 21 upheld cases we found the Council had provided a satisfactory remedy before the complaint reached the Ombudsman.
19% satisfactory remedy rate.
This compares to an average of 10% in similar authorities.
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Compliance with Ombudsman recommendations
We recorded compliance outcomes in 21 cases.
In 21 cases we were satisfied with the actions taken.100% compliance rate with recommendations.
This compares to an average of 100% in similar authorities.
Annual letters
We write to councils each year to give a summary of the complaint statistics we record about them,
and their performance in responding to our investigations.
Reports
The Ombudsman has published the following reports against East Sussex County Council
Find out more about reports
We issue reports on certain investigations, particularly where there is a wider public interest to do so. Common reasons for reports are significant injustice, systemic issues, major learning points and non-compliance with our recommendations. Issuing reports is one way we help to ensure councils are accountable to local people and highlighting the learning from complaints helps to improve services for everybody. Reports are published for 10 years.
Council asked to revise transport policy for adult learners with Special Educational Needs
East Sussex County Council has been asked to review its policy for providing home to college transport for young adults with special educational needs and disabilities (SEND), after the Local Government and Social Care Ombudsman criticised the way it dealt with a family’s situation.
East Sussex County Council to improve record keeping at school attendance meetings, Ombudsman says
East Sussex County Council has agreed to consider improving the records it keeps of meetings about school non-attendance following an Ombudsman investigation.
Service improvements
The Council has agreed to make the following improvements to its services following an Ombudsman investigation.
Find out more about service improvements
When we find fault, we can recommend improvements to systems and processes where they haven’t worked properly, so that others do not suffer from these same problems in future. Common examples are policy changes; procedural reviews; and staff training. Service improvements from decisions are published for 5 years and those from reports are published for 10 years.
The latest 10 cases are listed below – click ‘view all’ to find all service improvements.
Case reference: 24 008 593
Category: Adult care services
Sub Category: Residential care
- The Council has agreed to identify the action it needs to take to ensure: care providers receive copies of care and support plans; the Council is commissioning the support it has assessed people as needing; and officers accept requests to review people’s needs.
Case reference: 24 008 152
Category: Children's care services
Sub Category: Other
- The Council has agreed to remind staff of the need to arrange a formal visit with all parties when carrying out a section 17 family assessment to ensure all views are properly considered and all parties are given a chance to comment on concerns raised about them.
Case reference: 23 015 102
Category: Education
Sub Category: School admissions
- The clerk will remind the clerk about the need to make accurate and more detailed records of appeal hearings.
- The Council agreed to provide training to the panel about the consideration of evidence and reaching decisions on prejudice.
- The Council agreed to act to ensure on future appeals, the presenting officer has sufficient information to allow for detailed answering of questioning by panels.
- The Council agreed to act to ensure on future appeals, the Council as admission authority provides submission statements with fuller, relevant information.
Case reference: 23 014 977
Category: Education
Sub Category: Alternative provision
- The Council has agreed to explain what action it intends to take around its commissioning arrangements for alternative provision tutors for children out of school. This is to prevent delays in securing alternative provision for children out of school going forward.
Case reference: 23 013 708
Category: Education
Sub Category: Special educational needs
- Remind staff to adhere to the statutory timeframes as part of the Education, Health and Care Plan review process.
- Remind staff of the importance of recognising parental requests for early reviews of Education, Health and Care Plans, and of the importance of acting on those requests in a timely manner.
Case reference: 23 009 164
Category: Education
Sub Category: Alternative provision
- The Council will review its processes for alternative provision to ensure they are in line with current statutory guidance in terms of timescale and the requirement for medical evidence.
- The Council will review its use of ‘off-rolling’ to ensure this is only used where the legal criteria is met.
- The Council will ensure that appropriate wording is used in EHC Plans to specify whether alternative provision is interim provision or whether it has decided a child’s needs cannot be met in any school and EOTAS is required.
Case reference: 23 010 574
Category: Education
Sub Category: Special educational needs
- The Council failed to issue an amended Education, Health and Care Plan following an annual review in March 2022 and then delayed issuing a plan following a post-16 transition review. The Council has agreed to explain what action it has taken since 2022 to resolve the staffing issues in its Special Educational Needs and Disability (SEND) department which the Council stated caused the delays identified in this case. If staffing issues still exist, it should produce an action plan of how it intends to recruit and train staff to prevent future delays in statutory Education, Health and Care Plan processes.
- The Council should carry out training with its SEND staff and those staff who respond to complaints about the Education, Health and Care Plan process. The training should include the statutory timescales following annual reviews and reviews carried out prior to transitions.
Case reference: 23 006 935
Category: Adult care services
Sub Category: Domiciliary care
- The Council will ensure a local adult social care provider issues a reminder to all staff about staying the full length of time and to log in and out correctly using the electronic call monitoring system.
Case reference: 23 006 590
Category: Education
Sub Category: Special educational needs
- The Council will ensure it has a robust process in place to monitor when the annual review of an EHC Plan is due. Within this process it should ensure when the annual review is due the appropriate arrangements have been made for a meeting to take place.
- The Councill will ensure it has a process in place to keep detailed and contemporaneous records of special educational needs panel meetings.
Case reference: 23 005 967
Category: Education
Sub Category: Special educational needs
- The Council has already revised its alternative education policy (s19). But the Council will:include a timescale for deciding whether its alternative provision duty is triggered to prevent drift and delay.
- the Council will:remind its schools in its area to make prompt referrals to the Council when a pupil is not attending school.
Last updated: 4 April 2015