This post comes from a parent regarding the complete absence of a response from the Director of Children, Families and Schools at ERYC (Eoin Rush) and has required a formal stage 2 complaint to be issued in order to receive a delayed response tat doesn't even deal with the initial request for investigation properly. It's cases like this that suggest that the faults and failings concerning SEND in the East Riding come from the top down. If this is the attitude of heads of service, is it any wonder that there is such a huge issue in the area of SEN support and provision?:
"I contacted the director of children, families and Schools, Mr. Eoin Rush, back in November of 2021 after exhausting the complaints process of my son's former Primary school in Goole. It took a total of 25 weeks to receive a response from him and his investigation of this matter only receive a generic template letter:
Thank you for your email dated 30 November 2021, please accept my apologies for the delay in responding to you.
The local authority does not investigate complaints directly. If a complaint is made either in
writing or verbally to the Director of Children, Families and Schools or to any officer of the local authority, the Governing Body of the school is made aware of the complaint and is requested to deal with it through the adopted procedure. If you are not satisfied with the process of the investigation, you can make this known to the Director of Children, Families and Schools. (This is not the case if you are unhappy about the outcome). However, further action can only be taken if it can be demonstrated that the agreed procedure has not been followed, or if the Governing Body has not correctly exercised its functions.
I made it clear to Mr. Rush in my initial correspondence with him that I was not happy with the governing body's response to me, or with the way the stage 4 complaint process was undertaken so for this to be the response over 4 months down the line was beyond insulting. My child has been out of education for 2 years now and is diagnosed with school trauma as a direct result of this school, along with this the school slowed down his diagnosis claiming not to see any issues with him in school and not documenting incidents regarding his needs properly (found after submitting a SAR). We were misinformed early on in our 'SEN journey' until finding parent carer groups for SEN parents and the involvement on SENDIASS. The complaints process was completely biased towards the interests of the school and refused to accept or even acknowledge when presented with evidence of their failings. The head teacher was also very petty in blocking me on Twitter after I submitted the complaint , along with submitting a complaint to my place of work and phoning the police regarding a Facebook post I made. Mr. Rush didn't even acknowledge my concerns over this waste of police time (the police officer said nothing would be done other than to warn me to be careful what I post on social media - she said no other officer at the station saw the complaint as worth perusing)
During these 25 weeks of waiting for such an unsatisfactory response, I contacted Eoin Rush directly 3 times, his lead PA twice and numerous other officers and heads of service several times before eventually submitting a formal complaint to East Riding customer relations only to receive this generic template of a letter. I would take this to the Local Government Ombudsman regarding the failings of ERYC here but because the original complaint is regarding a school they won't deal with it.
I have since submitted a request to investigate why this process wasn't undertaken properly and have asked Eoin and other relevant members to re-investigate and have opened a new complaint but 3 months down the line and nothing further has been done and not a single reply from Mr. Rush has been made. I wish I had a job that paid as well as his for effectively doing what appears to be prevent parents and carers of SEN children's voice to be heard!"
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