Boy missed year at school because council thought parents had lied about their address

A boy lost a year's schooling because the council wrongly suspected his parents had lied about their home address.

Officials repeatedly refused to take responsibility for the 11-year-old despite his special educational needs.

They ignored the family's protests even after being given proof that the address they cited was legitimate.

Today, the local government ombudsman will rule that Wirral Metropolitan Borough Council had been guilty of "maladministration causing injustice" in the case.

In a damning report, Anne Seex lambasts Wirral, saying it failed to consider all the available facts.

She said 'no reasonable authority would have relied upon such insubstantial information to make decisions about a vulnerable child'.

The ombudsman has ordered the council to pay £1,655 to the boy's family to compensate for their stress.

It will also have to reimburse the parents for the private tutors they used to make up for the lack of formal schooling.

The case follows the revelation that Poole Borough Council spied on a Dorset family for three weeks to check they lived in the right school catchment area.

Both stories highlight the fraught issue of school choice. Last month, 100,000 children found they had not gained a place at their favoured secondary school.

The father of the Wirral boy, who has not been named, won an appeal in December 2006 over his choice of school.

He also gained full-time support from a learning support officer for his son, then 11, and assessment by an occupational therapist, physiotherapist and a speech therapist.

But almost immediately after the ruling, the council's education officers became suspicious that the boy's family were not living at the address they had given.

The family also owned a property in Wales and, after a visit, officials decided the Wirral house was uninhabited.

Mr H was told this meant the council was not responsible for his son's special educational needs.

He explained that building work had made the Wirral property uninhabitable.

This was accepted by the authority's council tax section but the information was not passed to the legal department dealing with the school dispute.

Mr H told legal officials to check his story with the council tax section but they failed to do so.

As a result, the education service continued to refuse to take responsibility for the boy's schooling.

The youngster started at his school only last November - 11 months after the tribunal victory.

The ombudsman has demanded that the council 'accept that it has no justification for its claim not to be responsible for Mr H's son'.

It should 'discuss and agree with the school and the parents whether there is any additional provision that could be made to help their son catch up on the year's schooling that he has missed'.

The council must also reserve funds, equivalent to the cost of educating the boy at the school for a year, until he has completed year 11 (aged 16).

The money should then be used to fund any additional educational provision that the school and an educational psychologist recommend.

A spokesman for the council initially accepted the ombudsman's ruling, saying it regretted the ' confusion' which led to the situation.

But within an hour, it performed a U-turn and announced it was planning to challenge the findings.

'We strongly disagree with the findings in the report and consider that the ombudsman has not taken account of the appropriate and reasonable points made by the council regarding this matter,' said the spokesman.

'As a result we are taking the unusual step of seeking legal advice to explore how we may challenge the ombudsman's conclusions.'

Nick Gibb, Tory schools spokesman, said: 'This was a local authority that was too quick to wash its hands of a child with special educational needs, the most vulnerable of children.

'We need to take extra care that the provision for such children is right, with special schools and specialist units.'