Cost revealed of failed support of SEND children for Derbyshire taxpayers – with £20,000 owed to one family

The failed support of dozens of children with special educational needs has cost Derbyshire taxpayers more than £79,000 in the past year alone – with £20,000 owed to one family.

An annual report compiling Derbyshire County Council’s handling of Local Government and Social Care Ombudsman complaints has highlighted the authority’s continued significant shortfalls involving special educational needs provision.

This is a “top” priority of the Reform UK administration, which detailed in full council last week that it is now responsible for more than 10,000 education, health and care plans (EHC Plans), which are legal documents outlining the support a child is entitled to.

Most, but not all, of the cases involve failures from before Reform’s time in office, under the Conservatives, but all the decisions were issued under the current administration.

In the past year, 55 complaints involving the county council have been investigated by the council watchdog, and of these, 52 were upheld (95 per cent), finding the authority at fault.

Of these, 49 were in children’s services, two were in adult social care and one was in the “place” department, which now includes home to school transport.

These shortcomings have led the council to pay out £79,838 in compensation in the past year, up nearly a quarter from £64,668 the previous year, with all of these payouts relating to children’s education.

This includes dozens of apologies – and even guidance on how to correctly apologise – with payments owed for causing repeated “unnecessary” and “avoidable” “distress” and “injustice”.

Meanwhile, the watchdog found the council had proposed a satisfactory solution or remedy in just nine cases, with the ombudsman having to propose suitable resolutions in almost all cases.

It says it has rolled out 16 different service improvement agreements and proposed 44 different recommendations for changes – of which 35 were completed on time (80 per cent).

Improvements include more staffing and using agency educational psychologists, the council details.

The watchdog says the council itself was late in responding to the ombudsman in 60 per cent of cases.

In a roundup of the 52 upheld decisions, the council has detailed some of the remedies it has been told to issue – including apologies and financial payments – however, it has only included compensation figures for some of the cases, with many saying “financial remedy”.

This includes the case of a family who had already been failed by the council in a previous complaint two years before but who never received their compensation.

All in all, in July last year the watchdog gave the council one month to pay the family £20,634, with the authority having taken almost two years to carry out one annual review of a child’s EHC Plan.

As a result, the child was both out of school and unable to gain suitable educational support for three terms.

One family was owed £9,658 for their child being out of education for two entire school years following secondary school, without sufficient alternative support throughout that time.

A further family was owed £7,000 for a two-year EHC review delay and nearly a year out of school, with further payments of £2,400 per term owed until the council put suitable support in place.

Meanwhile, a family was owed £6,500 after their child was out of education for three terms – missing an entire school year on the transition from primary to secondary school.

The family of a child was owed £4,350 for the loss of education and lack of any alternative support a child was entitled to for a year.

In further cases finalised in the past year, families received:

• £1,000 for a 19-week EHC Plan delay and two-and-a-half month complaint response delay
• £1,000 for a year-long EHC Plan delay
• £1,000 for a 15-week delay to produce an EHC Plan
• £1,000 for taking nine months to amend and publish a final EHC Plan
• £1,100 for a lack of tutoring for nine months
• £1,150 for a nine-month EHC Plan assessment delay
• £1,200 for failure to provide annual review decisions and complaints delays
• £1,200 for going two and a half terms without support
• £1,250 for three months of missed education and EHC Plan delays
• £1,350 for five months of missed education at a key point of the child’s studies
• £1,332 for spending seven months out of full-time education and without sufficient support
• £1,500 for a 10-month wait for an EHC Plan to be amended after a request from the child’s school, with no response from the council
• £1,500 for five months of missed support and a five-month delay for an EHC Plan
• £2,000 for 15 months without social care provision within their EHC Plan
• £2,300 for a nine months of lost support
• £2,900 for a four-month delay for extra support and a 10-month failure to provide a personal assistant
• £3,000 after a failure to provide appropriate support for five school terms – more than a year
• £3,050 for nearly a year out of school
• £3,150 for two and a half terms of missed education and failure to carry out a review for a child already out of school
• £3,200 for being out of school for a year