Surrey County Council to pay families £3,300 over SEND delays
- Published
Surrey County Council will pay more than £3,000 to three families affected by educational support delays
Three families will receive £3,300 from Surrey County Council following delays in support for their children's education.
The council's watchdog found in the three cases, families had suffered uncertainty and distress around educational support.
Surrey County Council is dealing with a backlog of about 1,000 Education Health and Care Plan (EHCP) assessments.
A councillor has apologised to the three local families.
An EHCP sets out additional needs that a child with special educational needs and disabilities (SEND), and how they should be supported at school.
The Local Government and Social Care Ombudsman's findings, published this month, ordered the council to pay £1,500 to one family, broken down as a symbolic gesture of £600 and £900 in recognition of the delay.
The council was also ordered to pay a second family £1,100 for the injustice brought about by its delay in issuing a care plan and a third family to be paid £700 for distress and delay.
The ombudsman said Surrey County Council's delays meant the young people missed out on vital education and schooling.
Councillor Clare Curran, Surrey's lead member for education, said the council took the ombudsman's findings "very seriously" and apologised for the distress the families experienced.
She added: "I am aware that the council has not always got things right and that the support and service that some children with additional needs and disabilities and their families receive is not always of the standard that we would expect, and I am sorry about that."
She said the council was "working hard" to improve services, despite national pressures and that progress was being made in some areas, with more work still to do.
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