£2,300 payout for Bucks mum after daughter missed three school terms due to EHCP delays

Known only as Ms X, the woman had her complaint against the authority upheld by the Local Government and Social Care Ombudsman.

The watchdog, which investigates complaints against councils, identified failures in Bucks Council’s Education, Health and Care Plan (EHCP) process.

EHCPs are legal documents setting out the additional support children and young people with special educational needs (SEN) require in their education.

The Ombudsman said Bucks Council had not completed an EHCP assessment for her daughter, who is known as D, or provided a plan itself.

The watchdog said the council delayed completing both, which caused Ms X ‘distress and her daughter to miss out on education’.

It recommended a financial remedy including £500 to recognise the ‘uncertainty, avoidable distress and frustration’ caused by a five-month delay in obtaining advice from an educational psychologist (EP).

The Ombudsman also recommended the council pay Ms X £1,800 for D’s missed education, although said the figure would be reduced by the £600 the council already paid the mum.

Its report, published last week, read: “The EP delayed providing their report which caused delay in the council issuing the EHC Plan.

“This is fault and caused Ms X distress as she did not know what the result of the assessment was going to be.

“The council also failed to provide alternative education for D within an appropriate timeframe. D has missed out on education; this is her injustice.”

The Ombudsman’s decision in March of this year said Ms X had complained that her daughter has not been in school since October 2023.

This was only a month after her daughter had transferred from a mainstream primary school to a mainstream secondary school.

The mum requested the council conduct an EHC needs assessment for D, but in December 2023 the authority said her daughter did not have special educational needs.

After Ms X asked for mediation in January 2024 and the council reviewed the case in February and agreed to a needs assessment.

However, the EP did not provide their report until October last year.

The Ombudsman said the EP should have provided their report within six weeks of the request – the middle of April – rather than October.

Its decision against the council read: “This is a delay of just over five months. This is service failure.”

From requesting a needs assessment to issuing a final EHCP should also take the council a maximum of 20 weeks – in this case from when the council agreed to do an assessment in February.

The Ombudsman said: “The final EHC Plan should have been issued in June. The council issued the final EHC Plan in October. This is a delay of roughly 20 weeks. This is fault.”