Summary: Ms X complains the Council  failed to review and update her child's (Y’s) original Education and Health Care (EHC) Plan, dated August 2015, until October 2018; failed to respond appropriately to her concerns about Y's deteriorating behaviour in 2017 and 2018, and her requests in March 2018 for early review of Y’s EHC Plan, a new assessment by an educational psychologist and then for a complete reassessment of Y’s needs; failed to gather sufficient professional evidence before the annual review which started in June 2018 and then delayed producing an amended EHC Plan; and delayed dealing with her complaint about these issues and failed to resolve the complaint satisfactorily.

As a result of these failures Ms X said her child’s transition to a special primary school in September 2017 was not as effective as it should have been and her child suffered distress resulting from a lack of appropriate support at their new school. Ms X said she was also distressed because of the impact of the failures on her child. She missed out on, or was delayed having, the chance to exercise her rights of appeal against the content of the EHC Plan and she spent time and trouble trying to ensure her child got the correct provision.

Finding

The Ombudsman upheld the complaint and found fault causing injustice.

Recommendations

The Council has agreed to: 

• pay Ms X:
  • £4,086 for Y’s educational provision and £500 for Ms X’s distress and time and trouble (which are the amounts it offered her at the end of its complaints procedure);
  • £100 to acknowledge the frustration and delayed appeal rights caused by the further delays from March to October 2019.
• produce a detailed action plan to show what it will do to produce its own procedures for monitoring the delivery of all its EHC Plans through annual reviews, agreed by the relevant councillors responsible for special educational needs. The action plan should be clear how the procedures will adhere to the requirements of the Special Educational Needs and Disability Regulations 2014 and the Special Educational Needs and Disability Code of Practice 2015. It should give a timescale for when the Council plans to put the procedures into operation and the staff training needed

To implement that;

• within three months of the date of this report, send us the action plan; and
• within six months of the date of this report, send us an update on implementing the action plan.

Ombudsman satisfied with Council's response: 16 July 2020

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