Bristol City Council has apologised and paid £3,800 compensation to the parents of a girl with special educational needs (SEN) for failing to provide her with lessons for seven months. She stopped attending school after suffering anxiety because it was not meeting her needs, but the local authority did not fulfil its legal obligation to ensure she continued her learning from April to October 2021, watchdogs ruled.
The Local Government Ombudsman has upheld a complaint by the child’s dad, referred to as Mr B, and told the council to pay compensation and tighten up its processes to ensure deadlines to publish education, health and care plans (EHCPs) are not breached. Instead of producing the girl’s plan within the 20-week statutory deadline, it took over a year, which delayed the parents’ appeal against which school she should go to, causing “significant injustice”.
In response the council says improvements have been made to its systems for EHCPs as well as communication with families of SEN youngsters, while a concerted effort is ongoing to improve timeliness and quality of contributions to needs assessments across health, social care and education. The ruling comes just days after the ombudsman upheld a separate complaint and told the local authority to pay £1,750 for failures in the case of another vulnerable student.
Read more: Bristol City Council pays £1,750 compensation for SEND student failures
The ombudsman’s report said : “Clearly the council did not comply with the 20-week timescale given Mr B asked for an EHCP for his daughter in October 2020 and the council did not issue the final EHCP until October 2021, more than 12 months later.” It said failure to comply with the deadline in the SEN code of practice was “fault”, meaning “maladministration” or “service failure”.
The ruling said: “It is clear from the EHCP the council has issued that Mr B’s daughter is entitled to significant support as a result of her special educational needs. I am therefore satisfied as a result of delay by the council Mr B’s daughter has missed out on special educational needs provision for around seven months longer than she should have.
"The delay also meant Mr B’s appeal was delayed. That is a significant injustice.” It said the girl had a part-time timetable at her school until Easter 2021, after which she no longer attended because of a lack of suitable provision, and that the lack of education between then and May last year was a “service failure” by the local authority.
"I am also concerned about the failure to put in place alternative education between May and October 2021, when the council issued a final EHCP,” the ombudsman said. “I have seen nothing in the documentary evidence to show the council made any attempt to identify alternative education for Mr B’s daughter during that period.
"The responsibility for ensuring a child receives full-time education falls to the council. “Failure to arrange alternative education between May and October 2021 is therefore fault.” It said that back in March 2021, Mr B told the council that the delay to the EHCP was preventing his daughter accessing the curriculum and he provided his own plan, naming a school he considered suitable.
The authority’s draft EHCP issued the following month did not name the school he requested, and in September last year the authority again told him it had identified a different one it thought could meet the youngster’s needs. He disagreed but the final EHCP in October named the council’s preferred school and not the dad’s, so he appealed.
By the time of the tribunal hearing in March 2022, the authority agreed to send the pupil to the school Mr B had asked for 12 months earlier, where she is now attending, which was confirmed by the final EHCP in April. The council agreed to the ombudsman’s recommendations including “reviewing its procedure to ensure it can identify when production of an EHCP is approaching the 20-week date to ensure timescales are not breached”.
A Bristol City Council spokesperson said: “The council acknowledges and accepts the findings of the report. There continues to be a concerted effort to improve the timeliness and quality of contributions across health, social care and education to EHC needs assessments.
"We regularly review our practice and have improved our communication with our families who are going through the EHC needs assessment process as a result. Other co-production development on this area of work has been taking place over the last two years and the implementation is now underway which includes electronic professional contributions for timely contributions and a new EHC plan template for a child centred plan will now be produced.”
Read next:
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Top council lawyer claims ‘no systematic monitoring’ of social media of SEND parents
Three quarters of Bristol SEND parents say council 'doesn't have their child's interests at heart'
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