Measure what matters.

Category: Surrey County Council

  • Family Testimonies: A Foreword

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    by Civic Watcher

    The following document contains a series of anonymised testimonies submitted by parents and carers of children and young people with Special Educational Needs and Disabilities (SEND) in Surrey over the last 2 months. The responses were collected in answer to the following question:  “Have you experienced unethical, dishonest, unlawful or harmful behaviour from Surrey County…

  • Open Letter to Rt. Hon. BRIDGET PHILLIPSON MP, Secretary of State for Education

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    by Civic Watcher

    Re: Urgent concerns over unlawful conduct, maladministration, and breakdown of accountability at Surrey County Council in the management of their statutory SEND responsibilities. June 2025 Dear Rt. Hon. Bridget Phillipson, MP, We are writing to you today not as professionals, politicians, or campaigners — but as parents and carers of children with Special Educational Needs…

  • 🚨 ACTION NEEDED: Will You Add Your Voice?

    🚨 ACTION NEEDED: Will You Add Your Voice?

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    by Civic Watcher

    Why We’ve Written This Letter – And Why YOUR Voice Matters Now More Than Ever A call to families in Surrey – and beyond – to support urgent ministerial intervention in Surrey County Council’s SEND services. Since beginning our deep-dive into the inner workings of Surrey County Council over nine months ago, one thing has…

  • The Story of the Survey that just *disappeared*.

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    by Civic Watcher

    Otherwise known as: What happens when data refuses to play along. For years, Surrey County Council has worked hard to shape its image. Just last week, in his address to Full Council at Surrey’s Annual General Meeting, Council Leader Cllr. Tim Oliver OBE stood before the chamber and proudly declared: “We care. We take responsibility.…

  • Overwritten and Obscured: How Surrey (*literally) Obscures their catastrophic SEND Performance

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    by Civic Watcher

    Surrey County Council’s Public Report on SEND: A Masterclass in Data Obfuscation We’ve covered Surrey County Council’s somewhat selective approach to performance reporting before. But unfortunately, their latest KPI Information, contained in the ‘Public Report Pack’ ahead of the ‘Children Families and Lifelong Learning Culture Committee’ this week, is probably their most ridiculous example yet…

  • The Cost of Silence: A Closer Look at Surrey’s Approach to Complaint Handling and Accountability

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    by Civic Watcher

    We’re taking a slight departure from our usual data analysis work to address some growing, urgent concerns regarding reported changes in Surrey County Council’s approach to managing complaints that have emerged since our last analysis reports were published. Firstly, we make no apologies for our relentless focus on the management of complaints in Local Government.…

  • A Forensic Review: Breakdown in Governance at Surrey County Council’s Audit and Governance Committee

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    by Civic Watcher

    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…

  • Institutionalised Gaslighting? Our Response to Surrey County Council Leader’s Statement

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    by Civic Watcher

    Measure What Matters. has taken the significant and unusual step of responding directly to the public response letter which was issued by Cllr. Tim Oliver, Chair of Surrey County Council, addressed to 2 newly appointed MPs and subsequently released to the public on the 3rd September ‘24. Whilst this is a step away from our…

  • Navigating the Fog: Understanding Misinformation, Disinformation, and the Quest for Clear Data in Local Government

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    by Civic Watcher

    Misinformation. It’s not always a matter of deliberate falsehoods. In the context of local government performance—particularly in complex reports about Special Educational Needs (SEN) provision—misinformation can be accurate but incomplete, out of context, or even just plain wrong. In the case of Surrey County Council, we believe this is not simply an issue of data…

  • The Growing Crisis in Surrey County Council’s Education Complaints: When Governance Fails

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    by Civic Watcher

    “So – do we know how we compare with other authorities in regard to these complaints in children’s services, etcetera, etcetera?” Victor Lewanski, Chair of Surrey County Council’s Audit and Governance Committee, June 2024. At Measure What Matters, when we identify anomalies in data or see outliers in performance trends, our method is clear: we…