Payout for child left without education for a year
BBCA council has agreed to pay nearly £6,000 to the family of a child who was left without education for more than a year.
Following an investigation by the Local Government & Social Care Ombudsman in 2023, North Tyneside Council agreed to provide the child with IT equipment to enable them to interact with lessons from home.
The ombudsman said the council claimed IT security restrictions and compatibility issues meant the technology could not be provided, but it failed to arrange alternative education for 13 months.
Mark Mirfin, the council's director of children's services, apologised for the delay and said the local authority had strengthened its processes.
Ombudsman Amerdeep Clarke said the child, who was left without suitable provisions during a GCSE year, would have suffered a "significant and detrimental impact" to their education.
"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, especially given the council's previous agreement," she said.
The ombudsman also said the council did not put any other arrangements in place for the child's education until September 2024.
Then it relied on the school to make a referral to an alternative provider and chased the school nine times to do so, rather than arrange provision itself.
The ombudsman said the council has agreed to apologise to the family and has paid them £5,900 in recognition of the impact on the child's education.
Mirfin said: "We have carefully reflected on what went wrong and the learning from this has helped us strengthen our processes so that children and families get the support they need more quickly.
"A provision has been in place for the child since March 2025."
