Bucks Council ordered to pay family of boy who was 'bullied and sexually abused'

Buckinghamshire Council did not meet the deadline for issuing a plan for the support and failed to arrange some of the provision, the Local Government and Social Care Ombudsman said.

In a new decision, the watchdog ordered the council to apologise to the mother for the ‘distress’ she experienced from the ‘faults identified’.

It also asked the authority to pay £300 to the woman, known only as ‘Mrs B’, and to remind its officers working on education, health and care plans (EHCPs) of the ‘need to meet timescales’.

EHCPs are legal documents setting out the needs of children or young people with SEN and the support they should be given in their educational setting.

The council has had to compensate multiple families in recent months for EHCP delays, which have been caused in part by rising demand, as well as a local and national shortage of educational psychologists who assess children’s needs.

In the case of Mrs B, the watchdog found fault with some elements of the council’s EHCP process, but did not find fault with other elements of its conduct.

The mum reported her son was bullied and sexually abused at his school in 2022 and claimed the council failed to put in place full-time education for her son when he stopped going to school.

Mrs B said this meant her son was out of education for more than two years, however the Ombudsman said it was satisfied with how the authority had handled the situation.

It said the council continued to consider the school to be suitable and was ‘satisfied’ with the arrangements the school put in place to provide Mrs B’s son with alternative provision until he could return to school.

The Ombudsman also said it was ‘satisfied’ that the council had named the same school as a ‘suitable placement for Mrs B’s son’ when it issued a new EHCP in October 2023.

However, the watchdog said it was ‘concerned’ that the council delayed issuing the new plan, following a review in March 2023.

Its decision read: “The council should have completed the review process and issued a final EHCP within 12 weeks of the review meeting.

“The council failed to meet that timescale in this case as it did not issue a final EHCP until October 2023. That delay is fault.”

Mrs B’s son did not attend school on February 19 and 20 last year because the council stopped the alternative provision on those dates as the boy had a school placement at ‘School B’.

However, he could not start at the school until February 21 as the transport arrangements were not yet in place.

The Ombudsman said: “Given the council knew Mrs B’s son needed transport to school I would have expected it to consider continuing the alternative provision until Mrs B’s son started at the new school.

“Failure to do that is fault and meant Mrs B’s son missed out on two days education.”

The council also failed to put in place extra provision in the EHCP to allow Mrs B’s son to study computer science, which was also ‘fault’, according to the Ombudsman.

Anita Cranmer, the council’s cabinet member for children’s services and education told the Local Democracy Reporting Service: “Whilst the Ombudsman has not found fault with a number of our actions in relation to this matter, we sincerely apologise to Mrs B and her son for any distress caused by the actions that have been highlighted.

“We work hard to ensure that ECHP assessments are carried out within the statutory timescales, but where this is not possible, due to the level of demand both locally and nationally, we aim to work with families and schools to mitigate the impact.

“We continue to work hard, in a difficult recruitment environment, to increase our Educational Psychology Service capacity, with the aim of continuing to improve the service offered.”