Somewhere to turn: the case for an independent complaints body for school students

01The problem: families hit a wall

Every day, families of neurodivergent students work to get the right support in place at school. Most issues are resolved through goodwill and good practice. But when they are not — when a family and a school reach a genuine deadlock about adjustments, inclusion, or how a student is being treated — the family discovers there is nowhere independent to turn.

In New South Wales, for example, a parent can approach the Australian Human Rights Commission, Anti-Discrimination NSW, or the NSW Ombudsman. Each of these has real value, but none is a fit for the problem. The Ombudsman covers public schools only, and generally examines how a complaint was handled rather than the substance of the complaint itself. The discrimination bodies can only conciliate a matter that can be framed as discrimination. None of these bodies has expertise in neurodivergence or education, the authority to investigate the actual decision about a student's support, or the power to compel a school or department to change course. The situation is broadly similar across Australian jurisdictions.

There are also dedicated offices for children and young people — the NSW Advocate for Children and Young People and, nationally, the Children's Commissioner. It is reasonable to ask whether a family should simply go to them. But by design these are systemic advocates: their statutory role is to speak up on children's issues in general, and they are directed to focus on systemic matters and refer individual concerns elsewhere — not to take, investigate, or resolve one family's dispute with a school. They are valuable, but they are not the independent umpire this gap requires.

The result is a system that, in practice, investigates itself. Families describe the effect plainly:

This is not only how families feel — it is what the independent umpire found. When the NSW Auditor-General examined the Department's complaint handling in 2024, it identified the same conflict of interest: students with disability and their families “may be reluctant to make complaints about their school, to their principal, perceiving a conflict of interest and risk of negative consequences.” The audit also found the Department “does not have oversight of the number, type or trends in complaints arising at the school level,” and pointed to the Disability Royal Commission's call for complaints offices that “operate within educational authorities at arm's length from schools” — a recommendation all governments accepted in principle in July 2024. The audit went on to direct the Department to enhance its support to families to resolve conflicting views “in a timely manner” — a recommendation it set for delivery by January 2026. That deadline has now passed, and the independent avenue families need is still not in place. (NSW Auditor-General, Supporting students with disability, 2024, pp.62–63; recommendation and timeframe at p.7.)

02Why it matters

The families who eventually get somewhere are those with the persistence, the knowledge, and the resources to navigate a complex and discouraging system. Families who do not have that time or confidence — and they are the majority — absorb the outcome quietly, because there is nowhere else to go. That is not a fair test of whose child deserves support.

The stakes are not abstract. In CYDA's 2024 education surveys, "three in four reported being bullied (75%)" and nearly the same number "were excluded from school activities or events (72%)" — both figures up on 2022 (70% and 65%) (CYDA, Snapshot of children and young people with disability in Australia, 2026, p.29). When harm and exclusion at this scale are rising, and complaints are still handled by the schools involved, an independent umpire is not a luxury.

An independent umpire changes the equation for everyone. It gives families a credible avenue that does not depend on their capacity to fight. It gives schools and teachers a fair, expert process rather than an adversarial standoff. And it gives the system something it currently lacks: transparent, aggregated evidence of where disputes arise, so problems can be fixed at their source rather than one exhausted family at a time. Whether that umpire is a brand-new body or an existing office given the mandate and powers matters far less than the powers themselves: expertise can be built or brought in, but the authority to investigate and to compel change has to be legislated.

03This is already widely called for

This is not a fringe idea. An independent complaints or oversight mechanism has been recommended by successive formal inquiries and is actively championed by advocacy organisations nationally and across states — including groups whose focus is all students, not only those with disability.

04The model already exists

The strongest answer to "is this realistic?" is that independent education complaints bodies already operate in Australia — just not for most school students. Two working examples show both the federal and the state path.

The international picture points the same way. The OECD found that around two-thirds of OECD countries had an ombudsman or agency to receive complaints related to public schools (Education at a Glance 2010) — the figure SAASSO cites in its own campaign. Independent oversight has only become more common since. By 2023 the OECD reported that "almost all OECD countries have in place a person or an office that serves as a children or youth ombudsperson" (Child participation in decision making, OECD Education Working Paper No. 301, 2023), and in Europe the network of children's ombudsman institutions (ENOC) now spans 44 bodies across 34 countries.

One honest caveat matters here, and it sharpens the point rather than softening it: a general children's or youth ombudsperson is not the same as a dedicated, powered umpire for individual school disputes. Independent oversight of children's rights is now the international norm — what Australia's school students still lack is a body with the expertise and the power to resolve their specific dispute. On that measure, they are the outlier, not the model.

05What a good complaints body looks like

Drawing the common threads from the inquiries and advocates above, an effective independent complaints body for school students would be defined by a handful of features. Independence and expertise are what make it credible; investigatory power and binding outcomes are what make it useful.

• Genuinely independentStructurally separate from education departments and schools.
• ExpertReal expertise in education and in neurodivergence, not just process.
• InvestigatoryAble to examine the substance of a decision, not only how a complaint was handled.
• EmpoweredAuthority to mandate outcomes, so findings lead to change.
• AccessibleA low-barrier process families can use without legal help or insider knowledge.
• TransparentPublic, aggregated reporting so systemic problems surface and get fixed.

06Helen's Way's position

Helen's Way calls for the establishment of a genuinely independent complaints function for school students — whether a new body or an existing office given the mandate and powers — with investigatory powers, the authority to mandate outcomes, expertise in education and neurodivergence, and a process families can actually access. We do not mind, in the long run, whether the answer is a new office or an expanded remit for an existing one: expertise can be learned or brought in, but the powers must be real. Because complaints and accountability span both federal and state responsibilities, both levels of government need to act.

The state and national Children's and Young People's Commissioners cannot resolve individual disputes, but their mandate to advance children's rights at a systems level makes them natural allies for this change. We would welcome working alongside them to campaign for it.

This reform is not radical. It is already recommended by inquiries, already championed by advocates across the country, and already working in two forms in Australia today. What is missing is the will to give school students, and the families beside them, somewhere independent to turn. That is the gap this reform closes.

Add your voice. You can endorse this reform, and the three others in our agenda, on the Helen's Way Reform Agenda.

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