A ‘DISTRESSED’ Slough mum was given an apology and £300 from Slough Council after long delays in assessing her disabled son.

The Local Government and Social Care Ombudsman ruled the local authority was at fault for taking a long time to finalise her child’s education, health, and care plan (EHCP), which sets out what special education support a child or young person needs.

The woman, who was anonymised as Mrs X, wanted her son to get weekly speech and learning therapy (SALT) from an independent provider at his school.

The EHCP must be reviewed annually, and a final version must be issued 12 weeks afterwards. In this case, it was every May, but the council failed to do this as it is still in draft form as of August.

Mrs X also accused the council of delaying and cancelling her son’s direct SALT support.

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The watchdog ordered the council to provide a written apology, pay Mrs X £300, and issue the final EHCP.

It wrote: “Mrs X has experienced distress and uncertainty due to the delay. This is injustice. I cannot say whether [her son] has missed direct SALT provision due to the council’s delay, unless or until it is included in [her son’s] final EHCP.

“However, once the council has issued the final EHCP it should consider if a further remedy is due for any delay in provision. If needed, Mrs X may return to the Ombudsman to consider a further remedy.”

While there was fault by the council, the watchdog ruled that there’s no evidence the local authority would provide SALT to her son ahead of the final EHCP, but suggested the school can use the existing provider until the council finds its own provider.

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The Ombudsman also said the council did not commission the support or agree to fund the support and there is no evidence the council told the school to stop this support.

A council spokesperson said: “The council received the findings of the Ombudsman and was pleased to discover that in one part there was no fault with the council in terms of its handling of SALT provision.

“On the matter of delayed EHCP the council accepts the findings of the Ombudsman and has taken actions in line with the recommendations in the report including an apology issued.

“The council’s special educational needs and disabilities service has been through some recent turbulent changes with regards to staff turnover, which has contributed to the delay of the final EHCP process.

“The council is currently on an improvement journey, working closely with the Department for Education, and has an action plan in place, to improve its services to children and young people so they can get the support they need.”