To think the leaders should have supported D of E better?

[BluntNavySquid]

I was wondering how much support and guidance your scouts are getting / have got from leaders while doing their Duke of Edinburgh through the scouts?

DD is doing her bronze Duke of Edinburgh award through scouts. It is at the local HQ so not run by her usual scout leaders but by leaders she is unfamiliar with. She has attended everything they have told her about and filled in everything she knew about but then she got an email to say her practice expedition has been cancelled as her team had failed to fill in some paperwork by the deadline. Chatting to her team it seems they did know there was some paperwork to do but had no idea of the deadline and they didn't know how to do this paperwork. There is a support meeting very soon so they assumed they would have help with this then. The last communication she has had with any leaders was back in February via an email that went into her junk folder so wasn't seen until yesterday. The email told them where to access this paperwork. There has been no other communication at all from anybody. I understand that the leaders encourage the young people to take responsibility for their D of E journey but surely one of them could have checked in with the team to see if they needed any support and see how they were doing?
I very much feel like the leaders should be there to guide and mentor them through this journey, not just sit back and watch them fail. I've not had a very positive response from the overall leader about this either when I emailed them, they said that the team should have asked for help if they needed it.

Do you think the leaders should have chased this up rather than wait until it is too late before communicating with the team or should the team have been a bit more proactive? (They are 13 and 14 year olds)
What has the support been like in your area?
I also want to say that we love the scouts, they are the most awesome people and both of my kids are having the best time in their sections, but sadly, so far the D of E team have just not been like that at all.
Thanks so much!