Hertfordshire County Council ordered to pay £1,200 to family for 'distressing' education plan delays

The Local Government & Social Care Ombudsman heard that the man, known only as Mr X, adopted his son “Y” in 2022 and following planned transition sessions Y started school in September 2022, transferring his EHC Plan from his old school.

Y had his annual review on 8 February, 2023, with the decision to amend sent by the Council on 9 March. Mr X made a complaint to the council in September 2023 as Y’s school told him Y did not have an EHC Plan and the review had not been completed following the annual review process.

Y missed four weeks of education after being expelled from school. The Ombudsman ruled there was fault by the council for which it apologised and offered £300 for the missed provision and £100 for the distress caused by the delay.

The Ombudsman stated: “The council failed to issue the EHC Plan within the statutory time limits following the annual review. This delayed Mr X’s right of appeal and caused frustration and distress.

“The school could not secure the therapeutic provision offered to Y and the council failed to maintain oversight of this. This is fault causing loss of opportunity to Y, and frustration and distress to Mr X.”

In all, five areas of complaint from Mr X were upheld by the Ombudsman, with a total payout of £1,200.

A spokesperson for Hertfordshire County Council said: “We would like to apologise to the family involved in this case. We are committed to working in partnership with young people, parents, carers and schools to ensure that all children with SEND and EHCPs in Hertfordshire receive the support they need and deserve.

“We take the Local Government and Social Care Ombudsman’s findings very seriously and where they find we have been at fault, we work hard to understand why that has happened, how we can put it right and how we can prevent it happening again.

“There are more than 36,500 children and young people identified in Hertfordshire schools as having SEND. Most children and young people with additional needs do not require an Education, Health and Care plan (EHCP) to access the support they need, as these are for those with the most complex needs, but we have seen a 223% increase in children and young people with EHCPs since 2015. We know that we’ve struggled to keep up with that increase and that’s why SEND improvement is a key priority for both the county council and local NHS.

“We understand the issues faced by children, young people and their families in Hertfordshire and have already put in place a strong strategy to address this. Through the investment of more than £130m capital funding, we’ve expanded local special school capacity in Hertfordshire by creating more than 750 additional special school places since 2018, with ambitious plans for further increases in coming years.”