Jun 4, 2022, KentOnline: Dartford mum paid more than £20,000 [$25K] after double Kent County Council special educational needs failure https://www.kentonline.co.uk/dartford/news/mums-20k-payout-after-council-failed-special-needs-child-268080/
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A mum has been awarded more than £20,000 in compensation after a council was found to have failed two of her children with special educational needs, causing them to miss years of schooling.
Kent County Council has been told to apologise to a family from Dartford and pay costs in recognition of "the distress and frustration".
One child went two-and-a-half years without a formal education, was denied speech and language therapies and was provided with online tutoring just two hours a week during the pandemic.
It meant they failed to record enough graded work to sit their GCSEs and missed out on a post-16 placement.
The Local Government and Social Care Ombudsman ruled there had been a "significant injustice" involving two children with complex learning needs from the same household.
Kent County Council accepted it had "failed" but said there were "unique circumstances" regarding the siblings at a time when schools and local authorities were struggling to keep up with online learning. It says it has since put in place measures to prevent children "falling through the net"....
In its decision, the ombudsman said the mother, referred to as Mrs B, wrote to the council after her eldest child stopped attending school in March 2019.
She also complained about delays to the EHCP process and said poor complaint handling caused additional frustration.
According to the ombudsman's report the council "failed to take any responsibility", instead telling Mrs B this was down to the school while the child was still enrolled.
It concluded the injustice to Mrs B's child was "significant" and continuous delays and failures added to their anxiety.
"They were left without their EHCP provision and suitable alternative provision for a prolonged period," the ombudsman said. "This happened at a key phase of C’s education when they were transferring to post-16 education. ...
Following the review, the council accepted the findings and recommendations and offered £5,400 in recognition of the lost education from July 2019 to May 2020.
In addition to this, the ombudsman has also ordered the council to pay various sums for other periods of missed schooling and a failure to meet EHCP provision.
The decision comes less than a year after the ombudsman handed down another ruling relating to another of Mrs B's children.
On this occasion Mrs B complained about the council’s failure to provide suitable education for her younger child, now 14, when they were unable to attend school because of anxiety and about delays in reviewing their EHCP.
"The education system, especially for special needs children is broken and the children are paying the price for it."
Again, the ombudsman found the council was at fault in that it delayed reviewing the plan and in responding to the mother.
The council apologised and paid the family £6,000 [$7,5K] to be used for educational, social and mental health purposes, for the child's lost education and special educational needs (SEN) provision since January 2020.
The latest payout is believed to be one of the largest handed out but Mrs B said the cash still goes nowhere near addressing the "untold damage" caused.
Following the decision, Mrs B told KentOnline: "Both of my children have been let down and significantly adversely affected by KCC's failings. My children are not the only ones this happens to and that is scandalous....
Even now she says on the days her children are well enough to attend school, she has to do a round trip of more than 80 miles from Dartford to two different places in the "Kent countryside".
The mum added: "The education system, especially for special needs children, is broken and the children are paying the price for it....
Mrs B has called for funding gaps to be addressed at a national level and greater awareness raised of the challenges facing parents with SEND children.
Parents of children with SEN were deeply frustrated by KCC's lack of communication regarding transport changes. ...
The council says it sought to learn from these circumstances and has worked with the ombudsman to put in place measures to prevent young people from "falling through the net in the future".
Last month, the director for education at Kent County Council Mark Walker described the county's SEN system as a “bottomless pit".
Data collected by The Bureau for Investigative Journalism has found that the deficit for such provisions has reached £103 million – in cash terms, the largest in the country – and it will take five years for the authority to break even again.
It found the main problem was that funding had failed to keep up with demand for EHCPs and SEN school places.
The county council was also criticised over its handling of SEND transport after a recent shake-up left hundreds of children unable to get to school.
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