Council to pay £13k to family for education failure

The Local Government Ombudsman found the child missed out on six terms of education

A council was told to pay a family just over £13,000 in compensation and take "urgent action" after a child missed two years of full-time education.

Bracknell Forest Council will pay the money after the child's placement at an independent special school broke down and they were left without anywhere else to go.

The Local Government Ombudsman (LGO) said the authority "should have been far more proactive" in widening its search for new schools for the child, whose mother said she could not work because she had to look after them.

The council said it regretted the impact the "significant delays and gaps" had on the family and has apologised.

The LGO found the child missed out on six terms of education and that "by any measure two years to find a school place is completely unacceptable".

The council was told to pay £10,800 to acknowledge the child's loss of education.

It was also told to pay the child's mother £2,000 to acknowledge the "impact of the fault on her, including her inability to work and the unexpected additional care" she had to provide.

The council also offered £250 for its "communication failures" and the LGO agreed that was appropriate. That is a total of £13,050.

"The council is committed to learning from this case and has already begun reviewing its processes to ensure timely and suitable placements for children with complex needs," Duane Chappell, the council's assistant director for education and learning, said.

"We are taking steps to strengthen our commissioning and placement strategies to prevent recurrence and to better support families going forward."

The council's special educational needs and disabilities services was found to have "widespread and systematic failings" earlier this year and published an improvement plan in May.

That was approved by Ofsted in June.

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