Somerset Council fined for delays in SEND support

The council was also ordered to provide additional training on handling parent's requests for all relevant staff by the end of 2023

A council has been fined £1,000 after a young girl with autism was denied the right support for months.

Somerset Council has been reprimanded several times recently over delays in ensuring children with special educational needs and disabilities have access to quality schooling.

The council has promised to pay the full amount of compensation.

It also apologised to the mother of the child who also has "significant" mental health issues.

Over the last 12 months, the ombudsman has served up several hefty fines on Somerset Council and its predecessor Somerset County Council, including £2,000 in both October 2022 and March 2023, and £3,300 in August 2023.

The latest judgement found a girl, known as Y, was denied support after council officers failed to carry out the proper assessments of her needs, according to the Local Democracy Reporting Service.

The ombudsman also found the council took 37 weeks to produce the final version of Y's Education, Health and Care Plan (EHCP), far in excess of the target of 20 weeks set by the government, and that it still "fell short" of meeting her needs even after this time.

The girl's mother, known as Mrs X, first contacted Somerset County Council in January 2021, asking for an education, care and health needs assessment to be carried out on her daughter.

Previous assessments, carried out by both the NHS and private bodies in 2019, identified that she had autism and potential ADHD, along with "clinically significant" mental health issues and issues with sensory processing, language and communication.

Following a formal complaint by Mrs X in March 2021, the council stated that it would respond to any advice provided by the county's NHS therapeutic services, but added that it was up to Y's GP or other health professionals to determine what specialist assessments she needed.

It also noted that the girl had been referred to Somerset's children and adolescent mental health services in January 2021, but "did not meet its criteria for support".

Formal complaint

The council produced a first draft of Y's EHCP in mid-May 2021, which went through numerous revisions over the summer.

Mrs X formally complained to the ombudsman in March 2022, claiming the council had not commissioned any further specialist assessments of her daughter, had not taken all existing professional advice into account, and had delayed issuing the final version of the EHCP.

The ombudsman ruled Somerset Council was not under any formal obligation to seek specialist advice when assessing the needs of vulnerable children, but that it had not been "reasonable" in handling Mrs X's requests.

A spokesman for the council said: "In this case we have accepted the findings and apologised to the family for any distress caused to them.

"We recognise the impact for families who seek specialist advice because they do not believe that their request has been fully considered by the council.

"We have accepted the remedy actions in full - these will be delivered within the agreed time-scales."

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