Nine complaints upheld after 'catalogue of failures' by Bristol City Council

A catalogue of failures by Bristol City Council to provide education for youngsters with SEND has led to watchdogs upholding nine complaints in the last seven months at a cost of more than £15,000 compensation, it can be revealed.

Several of the children and young people with special needs and disabilities were left without adequate teaching and support for months while their education, health and care plans (EHCPs), which the authority is responsible for setting out what should be provided, suffered long delays, the Local Government Ombudsman (LGO) found.

The council insists it is “not an outlier” in terms of SEND rulings by the ombudsman and says the most recent Ofsted reinspection recognised it is improving its services.

It says it takes its responsibilities “very seriously” and learns what changes are needed in the wake of every investigation by the watchdog.

Between last August and the LGO’s most recently published rulings in March 2023, nine complaints from parents and carers have been upheld against the city council’s SEND provision, of which the four most recent were all decided in March.

The authority was found to have caused “distress and frustration” and “significant injustice”, while poor communication and delays in its responses to parents was a recurring theme.

It was told to apologise and pay out a total of £15,300 for the service failures, with the three biggest costing council taxpayers between £3,330 and £4,000 each.

The case with the highest amount of compensation, which was one of the most recent decisions, involved a boy left without suitable education for over a year

In its ruling, the ombudsman said: “Overall, I am satisfied the council failed to ensure Child Y received a suitable education, including support for his SEN between May 2021 and September 2022.

“The fact he was denied this support meant an already vulnerable young person was further disadvantaged.”

Its report said several areas of fault by the local authority caused significant injustice to the boy and his mum and the LGO ordered it to review its practices and “identify any areas of service improvement, particularly around communication with parents and delay in the EHCP process”.

Final EHCPs are supposed to be issued within 20 weeks, but in two cases the council took 35 and 43 weeks.

Neither were the longest plans to produce, though, with an ombudsman ruling last August saying a dad asked for an ECHP for his daughter in October 2020 but the authority did not issue the final one until October 2021, more than 12 months later.

It said: “As a result of delay by the council Mr B’s daughter has missed out on special educational needs provision for around seven months longer than she should have.

“The delay also meant Mr B’s appeal was delayed. That is a significant injustice.

“Mr B’s daughter also missed out on education between the end of the Easter holidays in April 2021 and October 2021.”

A Bristol City Council spokesperson said: “We are continually working to improve our services, as recognised by our October 2022 Ofsted SEND area reinspection.

“Bristol City Council fully participates with every Local Government Ombudsman investigation because we take our responsibility for our children and young people with SEND very seriously.

“The city is not an outlier with respect to ombudsman investigations, this is a national picture, and the recent UK Government Green Paper highlights the pressures that providers and services face within the field of SEND.

“Every ombudsman report is considered carefully by senior leaders to ensure that we understand and learn what changes are needed and to ensure this informs our processes, and procedures, and that strategic improvements are put in place as a result.”

Last week it emerged that the council had restored its backing for government funding for Bristol Parent Carers forum after withdrawing it last year at the height of City Hall’s SEND parents spying scandal.

Deputy mayor Cllr Asher Craig said the authority was on track to meet its mayoral pledge to provide 450 specialist provision places by 2024 and was opening more specialist resources bases in schools across the city.

In October, Ofsted’s SEND reinspection found the council had made sufficient progress in four of the five key areas of weakness highlighted in 2019, although the fifth – “fractured relationships” with parents and carers – had not been fixed.