Council errors made child miss three school terms
PA MediaA mayor has apologised to the family of a child with special needs who was left without "suitable education" for more than a year.
The Local Government and Social Care Ombudsman said the secondary-school pupil, which it called Child Y, had missed out on several months of education, including part of their GCSE year, due to mistakes by North Tyneside Council.
It said the local authority had failed to set up the equipment the child required to interact with their classmates from home and ordered the council to pay the family £5,900 in compensation.
Mayor Karen Clark said she wanted to offer her "sincere apologies" to the family and that new "due diligence processes" had been put in place.
The watchdog said it was the second time it had ruled against the council for the same child.
It said following an earlier investigation, the council had agreed to purchase specialist technology that would help the child interact with their classmates while learning from home.
The equipment had been due to be ready for use by September 2023 but that did not happen, with the council blaming IT security restrictions and compatibility issues, according to the Local Democracy Reporting Service.
The council then did not attempt to make any alternative arrangements for Child Y until September 2024, the watchdog said, leading them to miss more than a year of schooling.
'No urgency'
Ombudsman official Amerdeep Clarke said the lack of equipment could only have had a "significant and detrimental impact" on the child's education and wellbeing.
She said: "North Tyneside Council allowed this case to drift without any meaningful progress, and I am concerned there appeared to have been no oversight or urgency to ensure this young person received the education they were entitled to."
The watchdog said new arrangements for the child's education had been put in place by March 2025.
Clark said: "I would like to say there has been lots of learning and due diligence processes have been put in place to avoid a situation like this arising again in the future.
"I can only extended our sincere apologies for any distress caused."