| SPOTLIGHT |
A child from West Sussex who was unable to attend school missed out on education after the council failed to provide a suitable alternative, an investigation by the Local Government and Social Care Ombudsman has revealed.
The child (Y) was unable to attend school due to ill health in 2019. His mother (Mrs X) told the Ombudsman that West Sussex County Council was unable to find a place in a specialist school and no alternative education was offered so she had to pay for tutors to educate him.
This caused distress, a financial burden and the child missed out on education because a full curriculum was not in place, the report concluded.
Prior to this, the boy had attended a hospital school where he was an inpatient from 2018. When the time came to be discharged, his mother told the Ombudsman the hospital had made it clear that the boy needed a full timetable which included education and activities with peers immediately on transitioning home from hospital.
“No support was offered therefore I believed I had no alternative but to finance Y’s education myself…at no time did the Local Authority offer to put EOTAS [education otherwise than at school] in place and EOTAS was something I was unaware of at this time”, his mother told the Ombudsman.
The report revealed that when hospital staff found out about the council’s refusal to provide funding, it offered for Y to remain in hospital to attend the hospital school. His mother said she had to decline this offer as she knew it was not in Y’s best interests to delay his discharge.
The Ombudsman investigated and concluded that the council was at fault, for failing to advise the parent it could provide alternative education at home when the child had no suitable education available to them in a school.
The Ombudsman said: “There is no dispute that Y was medically unfit to attend school when he was discharged from hospital. He was therefore eligible for s.19 education.”
He continued: “The council says it did not need to offer s.19 education when a parent had made their own arrangements. I find that Ms X did not make home tuition arrangements voluntarily, but because she believed her son was not entitled to support from the council. The council did nothing to correct that misunderstanding. This was fault.”
The Ombudsman has recommended West Sussex to apologise to the family, and pay £15,000 to remedy the injustice caused, which includes:
A West Sussex County Council spokesperson said: “We accept the findings of the Ombudsman’s report and have apologised to the family and have refunded the tuition fee of £14,752.33, along with the other costs.
“We acknowledge that we should have advised the family of the funding they were entitled to while their child was out of school due to illness.
“In line with the recommendations in the report, we will review our policies and ensure our staff are fully aware of the council’s duties around assessments and funding in such cases.”
