Council slammed for "serious and extensive" failures in provision for children with SEN

The Local Government Ombudsman has sharply criticised Leeds City Council over “serious and extensive” failures in a series of cases involving the education and care of children with special educational needs.

In her report Anne Seex said the council’s inadequate service provision in three different cases had resulted in substantial injustice for the vulnerable children affected and their parents.

The first of the three complaints upheld by the LGO saw Leeds fail as an education authority to ensure that the provision specified in a severely disabled girl’s SEN statement was made.

The Ombudsman said the girl was left in a situation where, at times:

• “the people caring for and educating her were unable to communicate with her as none of the available staff was competent in British Sign Language
• there were not enough staff to help her use the toilet, so she returned home in wet trousers, developed blisters and broken skin and suffered urinary tract infections, and
• the unsuitable and noisy environment meant that she had only very limited use of her cochlear implant – fitted at some cost to the NHS and with some risk to her.”

Seex found that Leeds had received information from various sources that the girl’s needs were not being met, but the local authority neither made further enquiries nor took any action.

The Ombudsman said: “It cannot use its failure to properly inform itself as an excuse for its failure to fulfil its statutory duty.”

The report also found that Leeds had failed as a children’s services authority to assess the girl’s needs and those of her family and to provide adequate respite care. “As a result, the girl and her family had to struggle through and hold together under enormous strain,” Seex said.

The second case related to the council’s failure to meet its duty as ‘corporate parent’ to provide for the special educational needs of a boy who had been in its care for most of his life.

The LGO said Leeds had failed to fulfil its statutory duties to promote his welfare and educational attainment. Seex’s report said the council did not heed professional advice about the interaction of his psychological diagnosis, his learning difficulties and his behaviour – either in its role as his parent or as an education authority.

Even though Leeds knew the boy could not cope with change and insecurity, it placed him in a school that operated from two sites, and frequently excluded him or tried to educate him off-site.

The LGO said the council did not revise his SEN statement or review his placement at the school that was failing to meet his needs and failing to manage his emotional and behavioural problems.

Seex claimed it was “inexplicable and inexcusable that these failures could persist over a long period”, and that Leeds had “signally and dismally” failed to promote his educational achievement.

The third case saw the Ombudsman find that Leeds had failed to seek legal advice for a boy when he was arrested and facing a serious criminal charge. Its failure could have serious consequences for his future prospects, Seex said.

The LGO has recommended that Leeds take specific action in each case and pay sums of compensation to remedy the identified injustice to the parents and foster parents who complained.

However, Seex acknowledged that the local authority had reviewed and reorganised its education and children’s service with a view to fully implementing a unified management structure by the end of 2011. A further review was therefore unnecessary, she said.

The Ombudsman said she also recognised that Leeds had taken significant steps to improve the personal education plans for looked after children and statements of special education needs.

Seex highlighted the fact that the various complaints involved the actions of both the council and the children’s schools, adding that she could not give a complete and comprehensive account as she only had power to investigate complaints about schools from pupils or their parents in 14 local authority areas. Leeds is not one of those areas.

Philip Hoult