LGO warns over councils failing to work together after boy loses year of education

The Local Government Ombudsman has warned of the “serious consequences” that can occur when local authorities fail to work together.

Dr Jane Martin’s comments came after she published a report finding Peterborough City Council and Cambridgeshire County Council guilty of maladministration causing injustice.

The case involved a boy with special educational needs who lost a year’s full-time education as a result of the authorities’ failings.

Dr Martin also found that the boy could have missed the opportunity of a residential placement with 24-hour support.

The LGO’s investigation followed a complaint by a grandparent. The boy (‘Harry’) originally lived with his mother in Cambridgeshire and had a statement of SEN. He had been expected to stay at special school after 16, but the arrangements were reviewed when there was a change in his behaviour.

After an assessment the children’s services team recommended that there should be a residential school placement. However, Cambridgeshire’s education team refused to fund the placement, arguing that Harry had no educational need for it.

The boy’s mother was by then struggling to cope with his behaviour. Cambridgeshire therefore offered a foster placement with continued attendance at his previous school. Harry refused to go back to that school and moved to live with his grandparents in Peterborough.

Cambridgeshire made a social services referral to Peterborough City Council in November 2008. The city council completed its initial assessment in January 2009. But it did not begin a core assessment of Harry’s social care needs for another seven months.

A dispute also arose between the two authorities over which was responsible for maintaining his statement of SEN. Harry was therefore out of school until he started at college in September 2009.

In her report Dr Martin found that Cambridgeshire:

• “did not carry out an annual or emergency review of Harry’s SEN statement in 2008
• based its decision not to fund a specialist residential placement on insufficient information, and
• did not act promptly and decisively to transfer responsibility for maintaining Harry’s SEN statement to Peterborough.”

The Ombudsman also concluded that Peterborough:

• “delayed in assessing Harry’s social care needs
• did not consider the safeguarding issues of his move to its area, and
• failed to take a child-centred approach to the transfer of Harry’s SEN statement.”

For Harry, this meant his SEN statement lapsed. He also missed a year of full-time education and nine months of support.

The LGO also said Harry’s grandmother suffered unnecessary stress and frustration and his mother lost the opportunity “to formally put her case for appropriate education and social care for Harry at a critical time”. Both are now left with uncertainty about whether, had either council acted differently, Harry would have had the benefit of a residential placement with 24-hour support, Dr Martin said.

The two councils have agreed to the LGO’s recommendations, including that they should review their current arrangements for the transfer of statemented children who are moving to post-16 education.

They also accepted that: Cambridgeshire should pay compensation of £2,750; Peterborough should pay compensation of £1,750 and provide appropriate therapy for Harry; and both councils should apologise to the complainant, Harry and his mother.