A North London boy with special needs missed out on more than a term of schooling after the council failed to step in when he had his timetable reduced – they then withdrew his transport.
The boy’s mother has been awarded more than £1,700 for the lost education and “inconvenience, frustration and distress” it caused.
An investigation by the Local Government Ombudsman (LGO) found that Brent Council was at fault for failing to provide the right support to the boy after he was excluded from a school and put on a reduced timetable. The local authority has apologised and said it “won’t happen again”.
The boy’s mum, referred to in the LGO report as Miss X, complained about the support the council had given him since 2020. She claimed they didn’t help prevent him from being excluded in 2023, allowing him to then remain on a part-time schedule for over a year, and withdrawing his school transport.
Miss X said this meant she had to reduce her hours at work and experienced financial hardship.
The Ombudsman concluded that, whilst the council did initially challenge the school over the timetable, “it did not pursue this further” and “didn’t show any evidence” about how it decided it did not need to provide school transport. The local authority was ordered to pay Miss X £1,375 “to recognise the education [the boy] missed out on”, as well as an additional £400 for the “distress” this caused her.
In mid-2023, Miss X’s child, who has special educational needs, was permanently excluded from a school and prompted the council to arrange for him to attend a Pupil Referral Unit at the beginning of the school year in September.
However, in early 2024, the boy’s behaviour got worse and the school decided it needed to put him on a reduced timetable. It said it would review the timetable weekly and look to increase the number of hours he could attend based on their ability to “effectively take part in lessons”, according to the report.
Brent Council initially challenged the school about using a part-time timetable and encouraged it to increase the hours as soon as possible. However, around a month later the council withdrew the transport it had arranged for the boy. It said this was because his reduced timetable “started and ended outside normal school travel times and it could not meet those times”, the report added.
As a result, the boy, named only as Y, did not attend school between the end of March and the end of September 2024, so Miss X complained to the council. She was offered £900 for the impact after acknowledging it had not provided the right support but she was still unhappy and escalated the complaint to the Ombudsman.
Following investigation, the LGO stated: “While the decision to use a reduced timetable was for the school to make, the alternative provision guidance says the council should also have kept this under close review. The council did challenge the school initially about the reduced timetable, it did not pursue this further. That was fault.”
Regarding the transport, the Ombudsman added: “If the council had either decided to continue school transport, or properly reviewed [the boy’s] alternative provision, I am satisfied [he] would have continued to access some education. Therefore, because of the council’s failures, [the boy] missed out on education between the end of March and the end of September 2024; around one and a quarter terms.”
A Brent Council spokesperson said: “We apologise to Miss X for failing to support her child, Y’s, special educational needs. It is not acceptable that Y missed out on education for over a term, causing Miss X avoidable inconvenience and distress and we have agreed to pay Miss X a financial remedy in recognition of this. We are reviewing our processes to ensure that this does not happen again.”
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