Payout after Bury Council’s ‘failures’ towards children

The results of two separate cases where the council failed in its statutory duties towards the youngsters have been published by the Local Government and Social Care Ombudsman in the past week.

In one case, the council was ordered to pay a complainant referred to as “Miss C” £500, after the authority failed to update her son’s Education, Health and Care Plan (EHCP) following annual reviews.

The ombudsman found fault with the council for this failure and for a delay in answering her complaint.

Another complainant, known as “Ms X”, was awarded £250 by the ombudsman in recognition of the time and trouble and distress caused by failing to follow the statutory complaints process for her child.

In the first case Miss C complained that for several years the Council failed to update an EHCP for her son who has special educational needs.

She said this resulted in his plan being significantly out of date and led to relevant services not re-assessing the boy’s needs, such as speech and language therapy and he did not receive suitable targeted and specific provision.

Miss C said this contributed to him not meeting the stated outcomes in his plan and she lost rights of appeal to ask for changes to his plan.

In the second case, the ombudsman found that the council failed to follow its own complaints procedure after she was unhappy about decisions made about her child’s needs.

The ombudsman said: “The council outright refused to consider Ms X’s complaint under the statutory complaints process with no clear rationale for this. “This was fault by the council and has caused Ms X distress and delay.”

The council was also ordered to review how it ensures it is complying with the statutory complaints procedure where a stage two is requested and was told to commission a stage two investigation into Miss X’s complaint.

A spokesman for the council said: “Bury Council remains committed to improving SEND (special educational needs and disabilities) services and has apologised to the parents in both cases.

“We have recently completed a restructure to ensure that the EHCP team has dedicated officers to undertake annual review work.

“In addition, work is under way to improve all services across the local area, including the Short Breaks pathway, and this includes having a dedicated social worker in the EHCP team.

“We continue to work in partnership with the Parent Carer Forum and wider partners.

“We would like to offer reassurance that we have learned and responded to the LGO findings to help improve our offer.”