Council to pay more than £7k after failing to provide "proper education" for boy with SEN

The Local Government and Social Care Ombudsman has found that Surrey County Council failed to provide a young boy with special educational needs his full entitlement of education and therapy for 18 months.

The council has been told to pay £7,400 to the family in compensation.

The Ombudsman was asked to investigate for the second time by the child’s family, and the investigation also found fault with the way the council handled the family’s complaint.

Following the investigation, the council has agreed to review how it arranges and monitors SEN support for children and young people in the county.

The Ombudsman found that as part of the boy’s Education, Health and Care (EHC) plan, he should have received 15 hours tutoring a week, along with speech and language therapy and occupational therapy. However, between September 2020 and January 2021, he received just four hours a week, which rose to six hours a week in February 2021.

A Special Educational Needs and Disabilities (SEND) Tribunal in April 2021 ordered the council to increase tutoring to 25 hours a week. The Tribunal also ordered the plan to include weekly therapeutic provision, which could include animal therapy, the report noted.

The Ombudsman revealed that the boy’s mother complained to the council in June 2021 that her son had “not received his full entitlement of education and therapy since September 2020” and that it had “still not put in place all the provision ordered by the Tribunal”.

The Ombudsman investigated and found that it took until the end of September 2021 for the full speech and language therapy provision to be put in place and March 2022 before the animal therapy started.

The mother had made the council aware the animal therapy had not started from May 2021, but the council did not follow this up, said the Ombudsman.

The boy’s relationship with the arranged occupational therapist “broke down” in December 2021, and the council did not put in place an alternative until March 2022, the report said.

To remedy the injustice caused, the council was told by the Ombudsman to pay the family a combined £7,400, consisting of:

• £5,400 to be used for the boy (Y)’s educational benefit. This is to remedy the injustice caused to Y by lost hours of education and therapy provision between September 2020 and March 2022;
• £1,000 paid to the boy’s mother (Mrs X) to recognise the frustration and distress caused over a prolonged period (September 2020 to May 2022) as a result of the faults. This also recognises Mrs X’s frustration is compounded by poor complaint handling and because this is the second time she has had to complain to us about very similar matters;
• £1,000 paid to Y to recognise the distress caused by the lost provisions and the enduring nature of the council’s failure to provide suitable education and special educational provisions for him between September 2020 and March 2022. This figure recognises the enduring injustice resulting from the council’s failures since 2018.

The council was also told to review its procedures for how it arranges and monitors delivery of provisions in the EHC plans of its children and young people that it is under a “non-delegable duty to make sure they are provided”.

Furthermore, it was told to review its children’s and education services complaint handling processes to “ensure complaints are investigated in line with its policy”.

Surrey County Council has agreed to the recommendations.

Michael King, Local Government and Social Care Ombudsman, said: “Councils cannot delegate their duties to ensure provision laid out in young people’s EHC Plans are delivered. After councils issue these plans we expect them to ensure all the provision included is in place – and if it is not, it should act to secure it without delay.

“In this case the boy missed out on a significant amount of tuition and therapies for a prolonged period, despite a previous investigation by us which found the son did not get education between 2018 and 2020. It is disappointing that the council did not learn from the issues raised in my first investigation."

He added: “I am also concerned with the confusing way the council handled the mother’s complaints, at one stage taking 11 months to handle a complaint that should – according to its own policy – have taken a maximum of 30 days.

“The council has accepted my recommendations to improve its processes and I hope the better oversight this will bring will ensure other children and young people in Surrey do not miss out on the education and therapy they are entitled to in the same way.”

A spokesperson for Surrey said: “Surrey County Council take the findings very seriously and apologises for any distress the family experienced, and has agreed to take action which the Ombudsman regards as providing a satisfactory remedy for the complaint.

“The Council must now consider the report and tell the Ombudsman within three months (or such longer period as the Ombudsman may agree) what it proposes to do. Copies of the report will be available for public inspection during normal office hours at Quadrant Court, Woking, GU22 7QQ. Anyone is entitled to take copies of the report or extracts from it. Copies will be supplied free of charge and requests for printed copies can also be sent to This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it..”

Lottie Winson