Suffolk Council forced to pay £45,000 to families with disabled children
It's due to failings in their SEND provisions
Suffolk County Council been ordered to pay more than £44,500 to families of children with special educational needs and disabilities (SEND) in the last year.
The Local Government and Social Care Ombudsman (LGSCO) has told the council to pay £44,536 for failings in SEND provision since last April.
This figure was revealed through a freedom of information request by Suffolk town councillor and Liberal Democrat spokesperson Adam Robertson.
At a Suffolk County Council cabinet meeting this month, Mr Robertson submitted a question to Cllr Rachel Hood, cabinet member for education, SEND and skills, about the fact the council had paid £23,300 due to problems with SEND placements.
Mr Robertson, who has Asperger’s syndrome and grew up in Suffolk, said after the meeting and the new FOI findings: “I am hearing of stories from families whose education and health care plans (EHCPs) are not being issued within 20 weeks of being requested.
“Cllr Rachel Hood, cabinet member for education, SEND and skills, has offered to meet me.
“I am happy to have a constructive discussion with Cllr Hood to raise numerous concerns that SEND families have told me.
“As someone who has experienced the SEND system in Suffolk when I was a child, I would be more than happy to share my thoughts on how it can be improved.
“However, Cllr Hood should be having a public meeting with SEND families as they deserve to be listened to.
“They are the ones going through the ordeal of the failing SEND provision in Suffolk.”
EHCPs lay out the support needed by children with special educational needs or disabilities. The council has a legal obligation to provide the plans and the support.
Government guidelines state the council should take no longer than 20 weeks to produce an EHCP.
Upheld complaints on the LGSCO website include a case decided in September, in which the council was told to pay £2,350 to the mother of a child with SEND who did not get sufficient education between January and July 2022.
In another case decided in June, it was agreed the council would pay £875 to the mother of a child who didn’t receive the speech and language therapy they needed between September 2021 and January 2022.
An independent review into SEND by a team from Lincolnshire was commissioned by Suffolk County Council in June 2021 and published in September 2021.
Commenting on continued problems with provision of SEND support, Cllr Hood has previously said: “A significant amount of money and resource continues to be invested into widescale reform of the way we deliver SEND services in Suffolk.
“Reform of this scale will not be felt by all families immediately, especially against a challenging national situation, but effective improvement is being seen.”
A council spokesperson said 22 of the actions set out in the Lincolnshire review had been actioned and the remaining ten actions were to be completed by December this year.
The council has agreed the delivery of 1,317 new specialist places either in new schools or units linked to mainstream schools by 2026. 826 of these new places are now open across Suffolk.