Data Extracted from; Local government complaint reviews – Local Government and Social Care Ombudsman (‘Complaints Decided’ by Local Authority, 2021-2024)
At Measure What Matters, our mission is to track local government performance, simplify key metrics, and promote transparency and accountability. Following our previous analysis of Surrey’s Troubling Education Complaint Crisis; this forensic review of Surrey County Council’s governance failures in overseeing complaints is a direct reflection of our commitment to empowering communities with accessible and clear data. By shining a light on how oversight has broken down, we aim to support informed dialogue and hold public authorities accountable for delivering the services our communities need and deserve.
As we’ve previously reported, over the past three years, Surrey County Council (SCC) has experienced a dramatic surge in complaints, particularly within Children’s Services, and more specifically in Education. In parallel, there has been a 164.37% increase in the volume of complaints escalated to the Local Government and Social Care Ombudsman (LGSCO). This substantial rise in complaints, particularly in Education, should have warranted urgent, transparent scrutiny by the Audit and Governance Committee to understand and rectify the root causes of underperformance.
However, based on our detailed documentation review of all meeting minutes, reports, and action trackers from the Audit and Governance Committee over the last 18 months, it is our opinion that the committee has failed to discharge its duties effectively. Our assessment identifies significant gaps in complaint performance reporting, with critical information actually dropped from reports, raising concerns about the potential of wider governance failure within SCC.
This report presents our findings and examines the systemic governance failures within Surrey County Council that has seemingly allowed these issues to remain unaddressed for an extended period, despite alarming escalation trends.
Systemic Failure of Oversight
The Audit and Governance Committee (A&G Committee) is responsible for ensuring that SCC’s internal regulatory controls function effectively, as defined in Surrey County Council’s Constitution. A critical aspect of their mandate is to oversee the council’s complaint performance, ensuring that concerns raised by residents are appropriately managed, escalated, and resolved. Despite this mandate, our review shows that from June 2023 through September 2024, the A&G Committee repeatedly failed to secure and assess critical comparative data that would have revealed SCC’s vast outlier performance, particularly in the escalation of education-related complaints to the LGSCO.
Omission of Critical Data
One of the most glaring failures uncovered in our review is the repeated omission of comparative data from committee reports. This data would have shown the disproportionate rate of complaint escalations in Surrey, particularly in relation to Education Services, which has driven the council’s troubling outlier status. The failure to include this data deprived both the committee and the public of a clear picture of Surrey’s performance relative to other local authorities.
Our analysis of publicly available data on complaint trends reveals that Surrey has the worst escalation rate to the LGSCO in relation to Education complaints of any local authority in England. This concerning fact has been completely absent from committee discussions and public reporting for over 14 months. It is our opinion that the Audit and Governance Committee has not only failed to act on this issue but has also, inadvertently or otherwise, allowed the situation to continue without intervention for over 14 months.
For further details on Surrey’s complaint performance, refer to our detailed report: Behind the Numbers: Unravelling Surrey’s Troubling Education Complaint Crisis – Measure What Matters.
Data source; Local Government Ombudsman Annual Review of Local Government Complaints 2023-24
The A&G Committee’s duty includes scrutinising performance data to identify trends, investigate failures, and propose corrective actions. However, despite the clear indicators of a serious crisis in complaint handling, especially in education related complaints, our review found that:
- No formal investigation or inquiry into the root causes of dramatic increases in escalations to the LGSCO was commissioned by the committee.
- No comparative analysis of Surrey’s complaint performance relative to other local authorities was provided or reviewed.
- No public report was issued highlighting the surge in Education complaints and actions being taken to address this, or the systemic failures contributing to this trend.
The withdrawal, and then subsequent prolonged absence of comparative benchmarking data is particularly concerning, as this information is fundamental to identifying when and where Surrey’s performance deviates significantly from national norms.
It is our opinion that the committee’s failure to properly scrutinise complaint performance has created a lack of transparency and accountability within Surrey County Council. We have concerns that this may, at worst, have perpetuated a cycle of underperformance in Children’s Services, where issues continue to be escalated to the LGSCO at disproportionately high rates, but the root causes of this have not yet been fully assessed.
Furthermore, it is our view that the lack of public reporting on complaint trends raises serious concerns about the council’s commitment to transparency. By seemingly excluding this critical data from reports, the A&G Committee has effectively shielded the council and specifically, the Children and Families Lifelong Learning Directorate from public scrutiny on one of its most underperforming areas—provision for children with Special Educational Needs and Disabilities.
Detailed Findings
- Unfulfilled Commitments for Comparative Data:
In June 2023, a committee member raised concerns about a 30% increase in complaints and requested comparative data with other local authorities as had historically been provided (see Appendix E, Annex 5). The Customer Relations Manager committed to providing this information in November 2023 as part of their scheduled update following the LGSCO Annual Letter. However, the report delivered in November omitted this essential benchmarking data, instead, again, presenting Surrey’s complaints volume data but only in isolation. This did not follow their historical reporting protocol. This omission also masked a significant and accelerating underperformance that would, in our opinion, have otherwise warranted immediate investigation. The action to provide this comparative data subsequently remained on the Actions Tracker for this Committee for a further 14 months without resolution or challenge.
- Omission of Critical Data:
The absence of comparative benchmarking data meant that the committee was apparently unaware that Surrey’s escalation of education issues to the LGSCO was not only a statistical outlier, but at the point of review, it was actually 10 times higher than the national median* (see Behind the Numbers: Unravelling Surrey’s Troubling Education Complaint Crisis – Measure what matters.). If this data had been included in our reporting, it is our opinion that it should have triggered urgent and serious scrutiny by the Audit and Governance Committee of the local factors driving these complaints. The failure to present this data therefore allowed critical governance issues to remain unexamined.
- Misleading and Disingenuous Responses:
When asked directly, again, by committee members in November 2023 about Surrey’s performance in relation to other authorities in the session on LGSCO Complaints, the Customer Relations Team Manager provided an inaccurate and misleading response. They described how comparative benchmarking was challenging due to differences in how complaints are managed across authorities – (See Appendix A; 22nd November ’23; Minutes, LGSCO Annual Letter and Complaint Handling Update; Para 15.) This was categorically false. LGSCO data is publicly available and provides clear and straightforward comparisons for all escalated complaints. Furthermore, this comparative view had been historically provided within reports. At worst, this disingenuous response could even be interpreted as a deliberate avoidance of transparency and accountability, given the scale of comparative underperformance that was effectively concealed as a result of this omission.
- Masking Poor Performance
Instead, the Surrey County Council LGSCO Annual Report to the A&G Committee claimed that the LGSCO’s annual letter should be interpreted as “positive” for Surrey, emphasising improved collaboration (See Appendix B & D). In our opinion this statement is highly misleading and further obscured the real issue: the extraordinarily high volume of complaints escalated to the LGSCO within Surrey, particularly in Education indicating a dramatic, localised deterioration in Education Services. It is our opinion that this report’s complete failure to acknowledge Surrey’s poor performance in comparison to all others consequently concealed the depth of the crisis in education complaint management from the Committee, from the Cabinet and most importantly, the public.
Governance Breakdown
In our view, the Audit and Governance Committee’s failure to access and act upon comparative data, or to contextualise Surrey’s performance, represents a profound breakdown in governance, with devastating consequences for public trust and service delivery. Based on our analysis it is our opinion that during the period from June 2023 to September 2024 – 14 calendar months – the A&G Committee:
- Ignored multiple indicators that should have identified the data remained missing.
- Accepted vague and misleading explanations from Council Officers.
- Allowed the situation to significantly deteriorate without taking appropriate or relevant corrective action.
Tracking of Key Action (A7/23) – see Appendix C:
- June 2023: The request for comparative data was made, but no timeline for delivery was documented in the Action Tracker.
- November 2023: No comparative data was provided; instead, misleading commentary was offered. No significant challenge was raised by the committee.
- January–September 2024: Repeated written updates promised progress and/or difficulties in gathering comparative data, but none was ever delivered. Meanwhile, education complaints continued to escalate unchecked. Finally, in September 2024, both Action A7/23 and A12/24 were marked as “closed” without the full comparative information ever being provided, nor any discussion as to the failures to do so over the preceding 14 month period, nor consideration of the potential consequences of this breach in oversight.
Consequences
It is our opinion that this failure to provide accurate and timely information has led to a serious and sustained breach of governance:
- Over the 14 months in question, the volume of complaints escalated to the LGSCO continued to rise, with Surrey remaining a clear and increasing outlier in terms of complaint management, specifically in relation to Education issues.
- Families have suffered, with at least 324 additional families and individuals raising enquiries with the LGSCO against Surrey County Council since this breach occurred, with 230 of these specifically related to Children and Education Services (see Local Government Ombudsman Annual Review of Local Government Complaints 2023-24). During this period, the LGSCO has required the council to pay over £540,000 in redress, representing a 109% increase on the previous year. In our view, this significant rise is a direct consequence of the council’s ongoing failure to manage complaints effectively—an outcome that we believe could have been mitigated, at least in part, had appropriate interventions been made earlier.
- Risk to Public Confidence as Surrey’s failure to identify or address these localised, systemic issues suggests either incompetence in internal scrutiny functions or raises the possibility of deliberate avoidance of transparency and accountability.
Failure of Leadership
While the responsibility for this failure in reporting would appear to sit with the leadership of the Customer Relations team and other Senior Officers within the Children, Families and Lifelong Learning Committee, it is our opinion that the Leadership of the Audit and Governance Committee must also be questioned. Our review indicates that the A&G Committee has repeatedly failed to hold Council Officers to account, failed to press for the necessary data, and in doing so, allowed misleading information to shape its discussions. In our opinion this constitutes a dereliction of duty that has risked the unchecked deterioration of services for the public with specific, significant impacts for vulnerable children and families.
Recommendations for Immediate Action
Given the severity of this governance failure, we would recommend the following:
- An independent enquiry must be commissioned to identify how such a critical failure in governance occurred and persisted for over a year without intervention.
- Accountability must be enforced at the highest levels of Surrey County Council, particularly within the leadership of the Customer Relations team, and Children, Families and Lifelong Learning Directorate and the Audit and Governance Committee.
- Reform of Complaints Management Reporting: We believe a comprehensive review of Surrey County Council’s complaints management system is required, specifically its processes for recording, tracking, benchmarking, and reporting. Particular attention must be given to Education-related complaints (Statutory Complaints), where it appears that failures have been most pronounced.
- Improved Scrutiny Processes: The Audit and Governance Committee must strengthen its scrutiny processes to ensure that actions are tracked and completed within set timelines. A clearer mechanism for challenging incomplete or inaccurate reports should be established.
- Restoration of Public Confidence: To restore public trust, Surrey County Council must communicate transparently about the steps it is taking to address these issues. This includes publishing the results of the independent investigation and committing to ongoing improvements in complaints handling and governance.
5. Conclusion
It is our opinion that this review has highlighted a significant breakdown in governance within Surrey County Council, particularly in relation to the management of complaints in Education and Children’s Services. In our view. the failure of the Audit and Governance Committee to obtain and scrutinise critical data has allowed systemic issues to persist, risking harm to both families and the reputation of the council.
We believe that only through immediate, visible and decisive action can Surrey County Council restore confidence in its governance systems and prevent further deterioration in service delivery.
- Annex 1: Graph showing benchmarked growth in LGSCO Complaint Volumes from reporting periods 2022- 2024
- Annex 2: Extracts from Surrey County Council Reports showing previous, benchmarked LGSCO Complaints Performance
- Annex 3: Graphs demonstrating what the *missing* data would have shown had it been included in published Scrutiny Reports
- Appendices A: Extract of Various Minutes; Surrey County Council Audit and Governance Committees 2023 – 2024
- Appendices B: LGSCO Annual Letters; 2020 – 2024
- Appendices C: Extract of Recommendations Tracker and Forward Work Plan, Audit and Governance Committee 2023 – 2024
- Appendices D: Audit and Governance Committee Report on Annual LGSCO Letter (2022 – 2023)
- Appendices E: Audit and Governance Committee Report on Annual LGSCO Letter (2021-2022)
Annex 1: This annex has been prepared to show the growth in detailed investigations by the LGSCO for Surrey County Council. The graph starts from the point at which the comparative complaint data was first withheld from the Public Scrutiny Reports in June 2023. This data therefore relates to LGSCO escalated complaints performance from year 2022-2023 onwards.
Data Extracted from; Local government complaint reviews – Local Government and Social Care Ombudsman (Complaints Decided, by Local Authority, 2021-2024)
In the absence of any comparative volume data from the reports, this comment was noted by the presenter within minutes;
Extract; Agenda item – ANNUAL COMPLAINTS PERFORMANCE REPORT – Surrey County Council (surreycc.gov.uk)
See: Annual Complaint Performance Report Minutes, June ’24 (28/24) Minutes, para 3
Annex 2
2.1 Extract Image of Graph showing benchmarking data provided by SCC as part of ‘Council Complaints’ Update; September 2021.
07 – Complaints report 2020-21 – Final.pdf (surreycc.gov.uk)
2.2 Extract Image of Graph showing benchmarking data provided by SCC as part of ‘Complaints Report’ Update; November 2022.
Annex 3
Visual representation of the *missing* comparative LGSCO complaint performance data for 2022-23 and 2023-24.
This data has been prepared solely for the purposes of this report to demonstrate what the information would have looked like, had it been included within the Annual Reports.
3.1 Graph Showing Comparative LGSCO Investigation volumes and upheld volumes for Surrey and comparative group (2022-2023)
3.2 Graph Showing Comparative LGSCO Investigation volumes and upheld volumes for Surrey and comparative group (2023-2024)
Data sourced from; Local government complaint reviews – Local Government and Social Care Ombudsman (Detailed Investigations; Upheld Complaints)
Please Note: Comparative selection is selected by the exact historical Large County Council cohort used by SCC to illustrate comparative complaint performance. Illustrated Mean volumes are calculated by ‘County Councils’ only, to ensure a representative ‘large council’ comparative group.
Appendix A:
Various Minutes from the Audit and Governance Committee meetings (June 2023 to September 2024) highlighting key discussions and requests for data.
See Annual Complaint Performance Report (32/23) Minutes, para 5.
See LGSCO Annual Letter and Complaints Handling Update, November ’23 (64/23) Minutes, para 15.
A.3 Agenda item – ANNUAL COMPLAINTS PERFORMANCE REPORT – Surrey County Council (surreycc.gov.uk)
See ‘Annual Complaints Performance Report’ June ’24 (28/24) Minutes, para 17
Appendix B:
LGSCO Annual Letter and data on complaints escalated from Surrey County Council compared to other local authorities.
Local government complaint reviews – Local Government and Social Care Ombudsman
Appendix C:
Various Updates from Recommendations Action Tracker and Work Plan from the Audit and Governance Committee detailing the timeline and status of Action A7/23 and A12/24.
C.1 Action from Recommendations Tracker, updated from action A7/23, first agreed by Committee in June 2023 in relation to comparative complaint performance (see Appendix. A.1 for extract of minutes)
See Annex A: Recommendations Tracker, Page 16, A7/23
C.2 Update from minutes of Recommendations Tracker and Work Plan noting that the action (including that to provide comparative complaint performance data) has now been carried forward for 12 months.
See ‘Recommendations Tracker and Work Plan (27/24) Minutes, para. 1
C.3 Extract from Work Plan Item 5 – Annex B – Work Plan June 2024.pdf (surreycc.gov.uk)
See Work Plan Item, November 2024, pg 36, Audit and Governance Committee
Appendix D:
Audit and Governance Committee Report on Annual LGSCO Letter, analysis and redress payments related to Education complaints (2022-2023).
Appendix E:
Audit and Governance Committee Report on Annual LGSCO Letter, analysis and redress payments related to Education complaints (2021-2022).
(Public Pack)Agenda Document for Audit and Governance Committee, 28/11/2022 10:30 (surreycc.gov.uk)
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