Peterborough City Council and Cambridgeshire County Council were criticised by Dr Jane Martin, who said the boy "missed out on a crucial year of education" as a result of the councils’ failures.
The boy, known as Harry, had been expected to continue at a special school after the age of 16, but changes in his behaviour prompted a review. An assessment commissioned by Cambridgeshire’s children's services team recommended a residential school placement, but the education team refused to fund this.
The report said that after Harry’s mother could no longer cope with his behaviour, he moved to Peterborough to live with his grandparents after refusing a foster placement and a return to his old school.
Despite being referred to Peterborough’s social services in November 2008 a core assessment was not conducted until August 2009. In this period the councils disputed who was responsible for maintaining Harry’s statement of special educational needs.
Martin said: "It appears that Harry’s experience of transferring to post-16 provision is the sort of experience that the SEN code of practice seeks to avoid. This is at least in part because changes in Harry’s behaviour called into question the transition planning carried out in the autumn of 2007. But subsequent actions of both councils made a difficult situation much harder for Harry and his family."
The ombudsman found that Cambridgeshire did not carry out an annual or emergency review of Harry’s SEN statement in 2008 and based its decision not to fund a specialist residential placement on insufficient information; it also failed to act promptly to transfer responsibility for maintaining the SEN statement to Peterborough.
Peterborough, in turn, was found to have delayed assessing Harry’s social care needs, not considered the safeguarding issues of his move and failed to take a child-centred approach to the transfer of Harry’s SEN statement.
Martin ruled that there had been "maladministration" and asked Cambridgeshire council to pay £2,750 compensation and Peterborough to £1,750. Both councils also agreed to apologise to Harry, his mother and grandparent, and to review their current arrangements for the transfer of statemented children who are transferring to post-16 education.
A spokesman from Cambridgeshire council said: "We accept the ombudsman's findings, and have already reviewed our arrangements for transferring children with statements of special educational need moving into post-16 education. In line with the ombudsman's recommendations, we have apologised to the family and agreed to pay them compensation."
Peterborough also accepted the ombudsman’s findings and said that Harry now has a full package of care.
"As soon as this case was brought to our attention we met with our colleagues at Cambridgeshire County Council to ensure as far as possible that a similar incident can never happen again," a spokeswoman said. "Going forward, we will ensure that when working jointly with other authorities, we take immediate steps to meet the needs of the child once a need is highlighted. Children’s needs are paramount in all cases.
"Harry, who is now 19, has a full package of care in place with a personalised budget which meets his needs."
