Parent asks:

If a child is permanently excluded, what happens to the personal budget? For example,  a child is permanently excluded in November 2016 and by February 2017 an Independent Review Panel found that the exclusion was illegal, various other issues, the school has no evidence of using any of the £6000 and the personal budget stated on the EHCP. The Governors have agreed to reinstate.

For the 3 months, when the child was out of education, do the school get to keep that personal budget for that period?

IPSEA Answers:

In law, the local authority (LA) is responsible for securing all of the special educational provision detailed in Section F of the EHC Plan. In practice, the LA will rely on the child’s placement to deliver the provision through the LA passing on funding to the school, typically through a contractual arrangement. When a child is permanently excluded, the LA must arrange a suitable full time education and this will include continuing to secure the special educational provision in Section F of the EHC Plan. It is not clear whether the LA continued to do this in your case. Depending on the terms of the contract, the LA would need to take up the issue of any funding not spent directly with the school but this is a matter between the school and LA.

What is important is that your child continued to receive a suitable full time education and the special educational provision detailed in Section F of the EHC Plan throughout the duration of the permanent exclusion. If this did not happen you may want to consider complaining to the LA with a view to taking it further to the Local Government Ombudsman if the complaint is not resolved to your satisfaction. You can find details of this by clicking the following link and choosing the document titled ‘Local Authority complaints’.