Kingston Council has been found at fault for leaving a child without any education for months on end.

The Local Government and Social Care Ombudsman ruled that the council had failed to make alternative educational arrangements for a boy with autism after he had a breakdown in February 2019 and refused to go back to school.

The boy, referred to in the report as J, had a history of anxiety attending school and often refused to eat or drink there.

After refusing to go back to school in February 2019, the council did not take proper action until it eventually arranged home tuition which started in October 2019. 

The Ombudsman said he saw “no evidence the council considered whether any education was being provided at home, what J’s educational needs were, or how these would be met”, and described this as a “fault”.

He also criticised the council for losing sight of the child’s educational needs and said it “failed to consider there was evidence to support that J was unable to attend school”.

The Ombudsman expressed concerns that the council’s alternative provision policy may be causing injustice to other children, particularly its medical tuition policy.

This says medical tuition will be made available to children who are unable to attend school due to medical needs or injury.

At the time Kingston Council required evidence from a consultant to say a child is too ill to attend, and had said J did not meet the criteria for medical tuition because he did not have this letter.

The Ombudsman said this was a fault and the council was “inflexible” about the medical evidence it was willing to accept.

It has since been asked to amend its policy to ensure it allows evidence to be considered from a range of medical professionals and others, in line with statutory guidance.

The Ombudsman has asked the council to review its commissioning arrangements for alternative provision, as well as to apologise to the boy’s parents and pay them £2,700 in compensation to acknowledge the impact of the loss of six months education and the distress caused.

A spokesperson for Kingston Council said the council and Achieving for Children, which provides childrens’ services in the borough, accepted the findings in the Ombudsman’s report and were taking the recommendations “very seriously”.

They said that they would be establishing a working group to prioritise this work “to ensure that similar injustice to other children in the borough is not taking place”.

An action plan has been completed and multi-agency teams have met to review the existing Medical Policy.

They said this has been shared with leaders across primary and secondary schools as well as those in child and adolescent mental health services and special educational needs teams to make them “aware of statutory duties to support attendance concerns at the earliest opportunity.”

They added: “The report has been instrumental in encouraging a more flexible, earlier response which should prevent escalation to the more formally commissioned places available. 

“Achieving for Children and Kingston Council will be working closely with health partners and schools to continue this work, and is committed to ensuring that alternative provision is responsive and appropriate for children and young people in the borough who are unable to access mainstream education provision.”