East Sussex County Council has been told to pay several thousands of pounds in compensation for failing to provide education to a 15-year-old boy with autism and ADHD. In a recently published decision, The Local Government and Social Care Ombudsman told the authority to apologise and provide £5,100 of financial compensation for its failure to provide any education provision for the boy between May 2023 to January 2024. The council took the boy off of his school’s roll in August 2021, where the ombudsman said he had only attended “sporadically”.
The boy then began to receive one-on-one tutoring provided by the council’s Interim Provision Service (IPS).But the ombudsman said he struggled to engage with these sessions and many sessions were also cancelled at his mother’s request. In March 2022, his mother, referred to in council reports as Miss X, requested a pause in the sessions due to a deterioration in his mental health and a change in medication.
The council continued to make the sessions available and the tutor continued to try to make contact with them. However, in May 2023 the service was cancelled as the council said it could not continue to provide a service the boy was not engaging with. These tutoring sessions did not resume until January 2024.
The ombudsman said they had not seen sufficient evidence to show the council properly considered whether the alternative education provision was accessible to the boy from May 2022 onwards. In their decision notice,.
