Council makes £10k payout over education support failures for boy
MUM HAD RAISED HER CONCERNS FOR YEARS TO COUNTY AUTHORITY
A MUM has been given a more than £10,000 payout after Cambridgeshire County Council failed to provide her son with the specialist support he needed.
The mum spent years raising her concerns to the authority about the education support being provided to her son.
The county council said it has apologised to the family and has taken on board the lessons it needed to learn to minimise the risk of something like this happening again.
A complaint was lodged with the Local Government and Social Care Ombudsman by the mum, who claimed the county council had not provided her son with the support set out in his Education, Health and Care Plan (EHC Plan).
An EHC Plan is a legal document which sets out a description of a child’s needs and says what support is needed.
Once a council has completed an EHC Plan for a child, it has a legal duty to deliver the educational and social care provision set out in the plan.
A report published by the Ombudsman said the mum, referred to as Mrs X, objected to the county council’s choice of secondary school for her son, referred to as Y, back in 2018.
The son had stopped attending school in 2018 and the county council began providing 10 hours a week of home tuition for Y in 2020.
Mrs X appealed against the county c council’s choice of secondary school a at a tribunal in 2020, but this appeal w was dismissed.
The secondary school selected by the county council was maintained as an appropriate place for Y, and the tribunal recommended the county council put in place a transition plan so that Y could move from h home tuition to the secondary
tschool. However, this transition plan was never put in place by the county council and Y continued to be tutored at home.
Mrs X complained in 2023 that the authority had failed to support Y to transition to the school, and said while the tutor had continued to be provided, the other specialist support set out in Y’s EHC Plan had not been delivered.
The EHC Plan said Y should receive three sessions of speech and language therapy advice to staff supporting Y; a tutor with experience of working with young people with similar needs as Y; advice and support through a clinical psychologist made up of weekly one hour therapy sessions; and a general occupational therapist to offer support to Y, Y’s parents and the school. Due to Y not receiving all of the support his EHC Plan said he needed, his mum paid out over £4,000 herself to organise therapy from a clinical psychologist.
Mrs X also complained about delays to reviewing the support Y needed, and claimed there had not been any consideration of what provision was required to prepare Y for adulthood.
The county council accepted it was at fault for failing to provide all of the support set out in Y’s EHC Plan, and for failing to complete an early annual review.
The authority also accepted it had failed to complete a transition plan for Y to attend the secondary school, and had failed to help prepare Y for adulthood.
The Ombudsman said Y had been receiving a “comparable to fulltime education” through the oneto-one tuition arranged by the county council. However, they said the other support and therapy he needed was not provided as it would have been if he had been able to transition to the secondary school.
Due to not receiving this support the Ombudsman said Y’s education was “not meeting the same standard it should have been”.
The Ombudsman recognised the county council’s acceptance of its faults and said the authority had now appointed a member of staff to support Y with preparation for adulthood.
The county council was told to make a payment of £750 to Mrs X in recognition of the “avoidable distress” caused by the county council’s faults.
The authority was also told to pay Mrs X £4,050 to reimburse her for having to pay privately for Y’s clinical psychologist sessions.
The Ombudsman also said the county council should pay Mrs X £8,400 in recognition of her son’s missed educational provision.
A spokesperson for the county council said: “We accept the Ombudsman’s findings and have apologised to the complainant for failure to provide provision detailed in the EHC Plan and for the delays in the annual review and transition process.
“We have complied with the recommendations from the Ombudsman.
“We currently maintain more than 7,500 EHC Plans and have seen a 30 per cent increase in related assessment requests over the last year.
“Incidents such as this are rare, but we have taken on board the lessons we have learned to minimise the risk of anything similar happening again.”
Incidents such as this are rare, but we have taken on board the lessons we have learned...
County council