Overview:

Key to names used

• Mrs X The complainant
• Mr X The complainant’s husband
• Y The complainant’s daughter

Summary

Mrs X complained about the Council’s failure to carry out an Education, Health and Care (EHC) needs assessment for Y when she had asked for it in January 2022, follow the statutory timescales for an EHC Plan process and deliver suitable full-time education to Y since September 2022.

Finding

Fault found causing injustice and recommendations made.

Recommendations

The Council must consider the report and confirm within three months the action it has taken or proposes to take. The Council should consider the report at its full Council, Cabinet or other appropriately delegated committee of elected members and we will require evidence of this. (Local Government Act 1974, section 31(2), as amended)

To remedy the injustice caused we recommend within four weeks of the date of this report the Council:

• apologise to Mrs X and Y for the distress and uncertainty caused by the Council’s delays in issuing Y’s EHC Plan and arranging suitable education. We publish guidance on remedies which sets out our expectations for how organisations should apologise effectively to remedy injustice. The Council should consider this guidance in making the apology we have recommended;

• pay Mrs X £300 to recognise the negative impact of the delays with the issuing of Y’s final EHC Plan;

• pay Mrs X £320 to refund some of the provision she arranged and funded in place of the special educational provision not delivered to Y by the Council;

• pay Mrs X £2,000 to recognise the injustice caused to Y by the lack of suitable education from the beginning of January 2023 until the end of April 2023; and

• pay Mrs X £500 to recognise the distress caused to her by the Council’s failings.

To improve services, we recommend the Council within three months of the date of this report:

• identify a senior officer from another service to review why previous service improvements around alternative provision have not been successful. Learning from this should be used to inform work to respond to the service improvements below and publicly reported to a relevant Member group;

• improve communication between the education welfare and special educational needs teams to ensure there are no delays in providing services to the children for whom EHC Plans are being issued;

• prepare an action plan to improve decision-making on education for children who are out of school and improve monitoring of part-time timetables. The plan should include:

  • timescales for making decisions on the Council’s alternative provision duty;

  • arrangements for monitoring suitability of any education offered by schools to children on part-time timetables or out of school;

  • clarity on the Council’s responsibilities when the child is educated at a school in a different council’s area;

• consider preparing a template for decision-making on the Council’s alternative provision duty.

The Council has accepted these recommendations.

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