A HUGE payout of more than £17,000 has been awarded to a mum from Reading after bungled assessments led to her child to miss out on a year of education support.

The child was meant to receive special education needs (SEN) support in school and additional social care outside of a school setting.

But faults and injustices in the process have led Reading Borough Council to pay thousands of pounds to the mum and the child.

Children's services in Reading are run by Brighter Futures for Children (BFfC), which manages education provision and social care for children in the borough.

Problems began when the mum disagreed with the provisions of her child's education health and care plan (EHC), which put them in a mainstream school with SEN.

The mum felt that her child required further support than what was offered, and that BFfC staff had wrongly insisted that an additional child-in-need assessment was needed before a package of social care support could be provided.

She also pointed out the BFfC had wrongly included the views of the school and professionals in part of the EHC Plan. This part, called 'Section A' is only meant to contain the views of the child and their parents.

The issues led the mum to ask the local government and social care ombudsman (LGO) to investigate.

The ombudsman found that the child missed out on a whole year of SEN provision and social care support. The watchdog also agreed with the mum that BFfC staff had wrongly conducted Section A of the EHC Plan.

In total, the council has agreed to pay £17,597.20 to remedy the injustices caused. Of that, £13,997.20 will be paid as a remedy to recognise the impact of the missed social care support.

A further £3,100 has been ordered to be paid as a remedy for Z’s benefit, for the impact of the missed SEN provision for the 2020/2021 academic year.

Finally, £500 will be paid to the mum in recognition of the distress caused to her in failing to respond to her concerns about the assessment process, the failure to put her child's social care in place, and the failure to deliver all the education provision in the 2020/21 school year.

A spokesperson for BFfC said: "We have made two separate apologies to Ms Y and have also apologised to Child Z, in a child-appropriate way.

"All payments the Ombudsman has asked us to make to Ms Y will be made and we commit to working with Ms Y to make all recommended changes to Child Z's Education Health and Care plan and social care support.

"We also commit to making service improvements to prevent similar situations from arising in the future."