Cambridgeshire County Council agrees to pay father £1,000 for distress caused

An out-of-date support plan was used for a whole academic year for a boy with “significant educational needs”.

The error was caused after Cambridgeshire County Council sent the updated support plan to someone who no longer worked at the college the boy attended.

The boy’s father raised concerns that a year of his son’s education had been impacted by the wrong plan being used as it did not fully reflect his needs.

The county council has apologised and said it is implementing improvements to prevent something like this from happening again.

The Local Government and Social Care Ombudsman has also told the county council to pay the father more than £1,000 in recognition of the impact and distress the mistake caused.

The boy, referred to as Y in the ombudsman report, has significant special education needs that impacts his daily life and had been issued with an Education, Health and Care (EHC) Plan.

An EHC Plan sets out what support should be provided to a young person to meet their needs.

Y’s father was unhappy with the EHC Plan that had been issued and appealed to the SEND Tribunal to get it amended.

A new updated EHC plan was issued for his son in July 2022.

The following month the county council sent the amended plan to a staff member at Y’s college who had left, something the authority had been made aware of before they went.

Because of this the college used an out-of-date EHC Plan when providing support for Y.

The county council did not realise that an incorrect plan was being used by the college until the summer of 2023 during an annual review.

The authority sent the correct EHC Plan to the college in October 2023.

The county council told the ombudsman that it acknowledged it was at fault for sending the updated EHC Plan to the member of staff who it had been told was leaving.

However, the authority said Y did not miss out on any extra provision by the old plan being used.

The college also said it did not have concerns about the education Y received.

The ombudsman said it had compared the two plans and concluded that Y did miss out on some provision due to the wrong plan being used.

By using an out-of-date version of the EHC Plan, the ombudsman said the college was not aware of additional outcomes and provision Y needed, as the plan did not accurately reflect his needs.

The ombudsman said: “The evidence shows there were differences between the EHC Plan used by the college in delivering the provision and the EHC Plan that it should have been using.

“The EHC Plan the college should have been using was a reflection of Y’s needs at that time, whereas the college was using a document that reflected his needs in November 2021.”

The county council was also found to have been at fault for the delay in rectifying the situation.

The ombudsman highlighted that the authority became aware of the issue in July, but did not send the amended EHC Plan to the college until October.

They said the county council’s faults meant Y’s education was impacted for at least a whole academic year.

The ombudsman said the authority had funded an additional year for Y at the college instead of ending the EHC Plan, which they said did remedy the loss of provision.

However, they said the impact of the situation warranted further remedy as it was “significant due to the length of time of the injustice (one whole academic year) and the impact on Y due to the severity of his special educational needs”.

The county council had offered Y’s father £500 in recognition of the inconvenience and distress the council’s faults caused.

However, the ombudsman said this offer did not “adequately remedy the injustice to Y”.

The ombudsman said the county council needed to provide Y’s father with a written apology and to pay him £250 for the “avoidable distress, frustration and uncertainty caused by the delay in rectifying the matter”.

The county council was also told to pay the father £1,100 for the “avoidable distress and impact on Y” and stipulated that this money should be used for Y’s benefit.

A county council spokesperson said: “We take each individual complaint very seriously, which is why we have apologised and are following the ombudsman’s recommendations.

“Incidents such as this one are unusual and we are implementing improvements to prevent anything similar happening again.”