West Sussex County Council (17 008 448)

Category : Education > Alternative provision

Decision : Upheld

Decision date : 23 Oct 2018

Summary

Mrs X complains that the Council failed to provide appropriate support and education for her daughter when she refused to go to school because of high levels of anxiety, but instead took action against her for non-attendance.

Finding

The Ombudsman upheld the complaint and found fault causing injustice.

Recommendations

To remedy the injustice to the family the Council should:

  • Apologise to Mr and Mrs X for not fully considering alternative approaches to ensuring an education for their daughter from April to July 2017.
  • Pay them £400 to recognise the loss of educational opportunity during this period, to be used for the benefit of Y’s education.
  • Remind relevant staff that the duty to provide alternative education may arise for reasons other than exclusion and illness.

Further Report

The Council has so far refused to comply with recommendations made in a report issued on 23 October 2018. The recommendations were made to remedy the injustice caused as a result of fault by the Council. The Council was given three months to respond to the report and provide evidence of compliance. The Council responded but refused to comply with the recommendations. We are therefore issuing a further report to highlight the continuing concerns about the Council’s failure to fully acknowledge and remedy its faults.

Ombudsman satisfied with Council's response: 9 October 2019

 

Print this page

LGO logogram

Review your privacy settings

Required cookies

These cookies enable the website to function properly. You can only disable these by changing your browser preferences, but this will affect how the website performs.

View required cookies

Analytical cookies

Google Analytics cookies help us improve the performance of the website by understanding how visitors use the site.
We recommend you set these 'ON'.

View analytical cookies

In using Google Analytics, we do not collect or store personal information that could identify you (for example your name or address). We do not allow Google to use or share our analytics data. Google has developed a tool to help you opt out of Google Analytics cookies.

Privacy settings