Bristol City Council pays compensation to SEN teenager

A council has paid out £1,750 compensation for failures that left a vulnerable student without vital educational support for six months.

Bristol City Council failed to issue an Education, Health and Care Plan (EHCP) within agreed timescales for the pupil with Special Educational Needs (SEN).

As a result, the teenager missed half a year of speech and language therapy they required for their studies.

Watchdogs upheld a complaint against the council that has since apologised.

It agreed to pay £1,500 to the pupil and £250 to their father, and said it would take action to improve how it ensures its provision of SEN in future.

In its report, the Local Government Ombudsman said the authority's delay in completing an annual review of the EHCP for the student, referred to as child B, and failure to issue an amended plan within statutory timescales was "fault", which means maladministration or service failure.

It said the delays began when the authority was required to do a "phase transfer" review of the EHCP for B, who was moving to post-16 education in September 2021.

The review was to set out the student's needs and detail how they would be met, the Local Democracy Reporting Service said.

The council had responsibility for ensuring those arrangements were then in place.

Rules state that assessment should have been happened by March 2021, but it did not happen until June.

A draft plan was only sent out in October after the start of the academic year and the final EHCP was not issued until January 2022.

The chosen college then contacted the council to review its funding for B's provision because the plan had been changed.

The report said: "The council issued its decision to amend the plan in July 2021. Amendment must start 'without delay'.

"The council's records show no evidence of any work amending the plan from July until September, when [B's dad] Mr X asked for an update and solicitors instructed by Mr X wrote to the council threatening legal action."

The council only issued a draft amended plan in October 2021 and the final plan was not issued until January 2022.

The ombudsman said because of funding doubts, the speech and language therapist could not keep the student's time-slot open, so the sessions did not begin until March.

A Bristol City Council spokesperson said it accepted the report's findings.

"A new quality assurance framework has been implemented from September to improve the annual review process which will focus on all aspects of the process including the paperwork and reviews undertaken by educational settings," they added.

"In addition to this the new ECHP electronic portal went live in July 2022.

"New plans will be issued using the new template and system which will enable review dates to be monitored closely."

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