Council to pay out after Year 10 children miss six months education

The London Borough of Croydon has offered to pay out £6,500 after two children who moved to its area during the middle of the school year were left without educational provision for six months.

The council made the payment offer and apologised to the family affected after a report into the case was published by the Local Government Ombudsman.

The complainant was a woman who moved to Croydon and made an in-year application for school places for her child and for her sister (for whom she has parental responsibility).

The agreed policy of London boroughs is to allocate school places within 20 days. However, Croydon failed to provide places for the children, who were in Year 10.

Recording a finding of maladministration causing injustice, the LGO said the delays caused “unnecessary anxiety” for the family.

“The need to catch up six months of missed work required for public examinations also created additional pressures on both children after they returned to education,” its report added.

The LGO, Dr Jane Martin, acknowledged there were reasons why places were not allocated for six months, but insisted that Croydon “should have offered alternative educational provision”.

According to the Ombudsman, the council has already reviewed its procedures to speed up the allocation process and to ensure cases are passed to fair access panels where it cannot allocate a school place within 20 school days.

It has also agreed to amend its procedures to ensure it meets its legal duty to offer alternative educational provision once the 20-school-day period for allocating places in the agreed London boroughs’ policy has been reached.