Buckinghamshire Council responds to Ombudsman report following complaint about support for two children with Education Health Care Plans in 2023 to 24

The Ombudsman found that two children did not receive all the therapy support to which they were entitled during the 2023–2024 academic year.

The Ombudsman noted that just under 400 children were receiving similar therapy services from the same provider at that time.

Contrary to the statement in the Ombudsman's press release, the Ombudsman’s report does not find that “up to 400 other children were also affected by delays”. Buckinghamshire Council has raised this matter with the Ombudsman, which has now corrected that statement on its website.

Buckinghamshire Council fully accepts the findings of the Ombudsman’s report and has apologised to the mother of the two children affected.

Carl Jackson, Cabinet Member for Education and Children’s Services, said:

The Council fully accepts the Ombudsman’s findings in this individual case and recognises the impact on the family involved. We are sorry we let these children down in 2023/24 and fell short of our usual standards and legal duties. Our priority now is to ensure this failing is not repeated.

“It is important to clarify however, that the reference to “up to 400 children” by the Ombudsman reflects the size of the cohort covered by the sub‑contracted service for Speech and Language Therapy during 2023/24, rather than the number of children who experienced a delay following the contract transition. Our NHS partners wrote to all families affected at the time to explain the changes and confirm how therapy would continue to be delivered.”

Carl added: “We continue to face high demand for Special Educational Needs & Disability (SEND) services, but we are successfully delivering improvements to those services. That positive progress was recognised in the encouraging Ofsted SEND Local Area Inspection report published on 10 February.

“Last year we adopted our local SEND and Inclusion Strategy with partners, demonstrating our shared commitment to strengthening services across Buckinghamshire and ensuring no child misses out on the support they need.”

Jenny Ricketts, Chief Nurse of Buckinghamshire Healthcare NHS Trust, said:

“We take the Ombudsman’s findings extremely seriously and are deeply sorry that the children and their family did not receive the support they were entitled to. This is not the standard of care we strive to deliver. We are already strengthening our processes and working closely with partners to ensure children and young people with SEND receive timely, consistent and high-quality support. Our teams are committed to learning from this and making the improvements needed so families can have full confidence in the services we provide.”

The published report highlights key learning for the Council and important issues around the delivery of support for children with EHCPs, which will serve as a case study for all organisations with similar responsibilities.

The Council will publish an action plan within the next three months to explain the steps it will take to review EHCPs and prevent this happening again.

A copy of the Ombudsman's report is available online.