North Northamptonshire Council to pay £7,000 for child missing education

A council has been ordered to pay a family £7,000 after a boy with additional needs missed school for a year.

The Local Government & Social Care Ombudsman (LGO) found North Northants Council (NNC) failed to offer the student a specialist school place, or interim tuition, causing him to be out of education for a year.

The family moved into the council’s area in September 2022, with their child - referred to as ‘Z’ - due to start Year 8.

As he could no longer attend the special school on his previous education health and care plan (EHCP) due to the distance, NNC was in charge of taking on his education and finding him a new school place.

Guidance states that when a young person moves to another local authority, the ‘new’ council must make sure the EHCP provision begins within 15 working days of becoming aware of the move.

His parents complained to the council in January 2023, five months after they relocated, that their son had still not been given a school place.

Later that year, in June, NNC issued the pupil’s final EHC plan which named an independent special school as his placement, starting in September.

In its response, the council apologised for the delay and agreed that it had taken too long to secure provision for ‘Z’.

It also added that tutoring was offered for the child to cover the months he spent out of education, but was declined by the family.

The father told the ombudsman that tutoring was mentioned only once by NNC with no detailed written offer for him.

He said he told the council he didn’t think tutoring would work, but they could try it. He said tutoring was not mentioned again after this.

The local government watchdog wrote: “The council did not secure provision on Z’s EHC plan until the end of June 2023. The council made no offer of special educational provision.

“The council claimed to have offered tuition in the second complaint response, but Mr X denies this.

"Had the council made a firm offer of tuition in writing to Mr X, I would expect it to have described this in detail in both its complaint responses.

“The fault caused Z to be out of education for a year.”

North Northants Council must pay the family a total of £7,250 to reflect the fact that there was no firm offer of any provision or placement and the ‘avoidable distress’ caused to the family.

North Northamptonshire Council has been contacted for comment.