Long waits for Education, Health and Care plans are causing children to go without the “vital support” they need, the local government and social care ombudsman has said.
Two families have won compensation from Norfolk County Council after their children did not receive suitable education while waiting for EHC plans.
The families waited for a year and 26 weeks respectively for EHC plans - the statutory deadline for producing a plan is 20 weeks.
And the ombudsman pointed out that over the past two years, it has upheld nine similar complaints about Norfolk County Council’s provision for children with special educational needs and disabilities (SEND), something it describes as a “worrying pattern”.
Michael King, the local government and social care ombudsman, said that he expected councils to use its focus reports on out-of-school education provision and use of EHC plans to improve their services.
He added that in the two most recent cases: “These children were without the vital support and provision they needed at crucial times of their education. I hope the remedies the council has agreed will go some way to repairing the damage done.”
In the first case, a mother won £4,250 in compensation from Norfolk Council, after the ombudsman found her son lost out on a year of education after the council took nearly 46 weeks to produce his EHC plan.
The boy, who started secondary school in 2014, was bullied throughout Year 7, and by May 2015 had started refusing to go to school.
He received counselling for anxiety by December 2015, and was put on an agreed reduced timetable of just one hour a day. His mother asked the school to give him more work to complete at home as she was concerned about his progress.
The boy was given six hours of home tuition a week from June 2016 until March 2017. During this time, the boy was diagnosed as autistic.
The mother had asked the council for an EHC assessment in March 2016 but the draft EHC was not ready until March 2017. The plan placed the boy in his original school, something that the mother disputed.
When the home tuition ended in March 2017, the boy refused to go back to his original school, meaning that he had no education for the entire summer term of 2017. He began at a new specialist school in September 2017.
The ombudsman ruled that compensation should be paid to acknowledge the injustice arising from the boy losing one academic year of education from October 2015 to May 2016 and from November 2016 to March 2017. The mother was also compensated for delays by the council in issuing the plan and to compensate for the frustration, time and trouble caused.
In a second case in Norfolk, the council agreed to pay £3,900 to the family of a boy after it failing to provide him with a suitable education after he was excluded.
The family had received a request for an EHC plan for their son in August 2017. The boy was later excluded from primary school in November 2017, due to behavioural issues, and from January 2018 began receiving one hour of education a week at home.
While the council issued a draft plan in February 2018, the boy’s mother asked the council to put a hold on the final plan as she had commissioned a dyslexia report.
The final plan was issued in April 2018, but had no school named. The boy’s mother contacted 11 schools and the council contacted one school. A school place was found by the boy’s mother and he started in September 2018.
In its report, the ombudsman said that the council had failed to provide a suitable education for the boy for eight months after he was excluded and that it was the council’s duty, rather than the boy’s mother, to contact schools and finding him a place.
The report states: “Over the last two years, we have investigated and upheld nine complaints against this Council about similar issues Mrs X [the boy’s mother] has complained to us about. Clearly, Mrs X’s experience has not been an isolated concern. This report is in part a reflection of our concern at this worrying pattern.”
It added that Norfolk Council “has had issues with high rates of exclusions and availability of alternative education provision for at least the past two years.”
A spokesman for Norfolk County Council said: “We want all children to get access to the very best education and we are very sorry that there were delays for both of these children and their families. Both children are now in full-time places and doing well at school.
“It is encouraging that the local government ombudsman has welcomed the proactive steps we’ve taken to improve provision and oversight of services for children with SEN since these complaints were raised.
“This includes £125 million to create more special school places and specialist places in mainstream schools, £1.5 million of investment that we’ve just announced to double our specialist teams and additional outreach to help schools to support their children.”
