Complaints about Solihull children's services are down but concerns have been raised about a rise relating to support for children with special education needs.

A report on the complaints was scrutinised by councillors during the latest meeting of the children's services and education scrutiny board.

As the Local Democracy Reporting Service reported earlier this year government intervention introduced at Solihull Metropolitan Borough Council's (SMBC) children's services department, in the wake of the killing of Arthur Labinjo-Hughes in 2020, was removed after a major turnaround.

Caroline Lear, the authority's customer relations manager, told councillors the report covered the period April last year to March this year when there were 67 complaints – a decrease of 15 per cent – over children's social care services compared to 79 the previous year.

The officer said it should be noted that there had been a decrease of 12 per cent in children accessing services, meaning complaints were received from only 1.7 per cent of service users.

And 112 compliments were received for children's services during the period.

But it was also highlighted there were 88 new formal complaints relating to the council's team for Education, Health and Care Plans (EHCPs) – which are designed to support children and young people with special educational needs.

This was compared to 29 in the previous year.

"Despite the increase in the number of new complaints, the number progressing to investigation by the ombudsman remains low," the officer said.

Cllr Samantha Gethen raised that four complaints about the EHCP teams were upheld by the local government and social care ombudsman with £5,250 paid out to complainants.

"As we are having a rise in EHCPs are we expecting that to rise and where would the budget fall for that pay out to parents if there are further issues?"

Jane Sowerby, the assistant director of education at SMBC, replied: "These (pay outs) are relatively legacy cases, I would very much expect to see fewer going forward.

"Some of those pay outs are usually around education gaps but since Jameel Mullen, our head of service, has come in he has introduced lots of change.

"I'm not suggesting 100 per cent of time we will always get it right, but a very considerable amount of time we do.

"Even though EHCPs are likely to rise, I wouldn't expect those monies to rise."

Cllr James Johnson said: "As a teacher myself I've worked in schools where EHCPs are dealt with very well, and I've worked in schools that hasn't happened.

"I'd ask us to consider as a potential cause (of EHCP complaints) this anxiety and anticipation of reforms that are coming in.

"Do we feel like the team we have in place is struggling to cope or have the capacity to deal with the increase in EHCP applications?

Ms Sowerby replied: "We have a strong number of colleagues in our team and consequently the percentage of plans we complete within the 20 week legal timeframe is very high.

"We are comfortable we have the capacity we need – we are always monitoring that."

The meeting was held at the Civic Suite on July 28.