Bucks Council ordered to pay mum over child's education care plan delays

Known only as Mrs X, she has been receiving £100 for every month her child’s EHCP is delayed and also had an apology from the council, which upheld her complaint.

The case marks the council’s latest failure to stick to the legal deadline for EHCPs, under which local authorities have 20 weeks to make a plan from the date of the request for a needs assessment.

A father was also recently compensated for such delays, which are being caused by a high volume of requests for plans and Bucks Council’s shortage of educational psychologists.

EPs, as they are known, gather information about a child or young person’s needs in an educational setting.

This then informs whether a council will make an EHCP, a legal document outlining the special educational needs or disability of a young person who requires more support than would typically be available to them.

In the case of Mrs X, she requested the needs assessment for her child, Y, on 9 January this year.

Because the council decided to issue a plan, it should have done so by 28 May to comply with the 20-week limit – this is only 16 weeks if an authority does not issue a plan.

The council sent her a draft plan on 17 September, but has not made a final version, according to a recent decision by the Local Government and Social Care Ombudsman.

The regulator, which investigates complaints against councils, published its report on the case this week after reaching its verdict in October.

The Ombudsman said the council agreed to resolve the complaint early ‘by providing a proportionate remedy for the injustice caused to Mrs X’.

Its report read: “The Ombudsman’s approach is that, although we acknowledge the national shortage of EPs, a failure to complete the EHC needs assessment process within the statutory timescales is fault.

“Where we are satisfied the council has plans in place to address the lack of EPs, we would likely find fault due to ‘service failure’.”

The council has acknowledged its shortages of educational psychologists, which is part of a national issue affecting multiple councils and not limited to Buckinghamshire.

The Ombudsman said the council had plans in place to address the issue.

The council’s service director for education, Michael Jarrett, recently admitted the authority could not meet the 20-week deadline for all children.

He said: “Unfortunately, we are not always – for a variety of reasons, mostly due to capacity – able to meet that statutory timeframe.”

Speaking during a meeting of the schools forum, he also confirmed there were currently around 7,000 children with EHCPs across Buckinghamshire.

Councillor Joseph Baum said the authority accepted the Ombudsman’s findings, had apologised to the family for the delays and had ‘worked hard to resolve the case’.

He told the Local Democracy Reporting Service: “Demand for these assessments has risen significantly in the last two years but we know for each individual family, any delay to this process causes extra distress and uncertainty.”

He said the council was working to bring down delays generally, to better manage service demands and was committed to every young person getting ‘the best possible start in life’.