A council has been told to pay compensation to a father after making several errors that caused an "injustice" in trying to obtain his child's speech and language sessions.

Leicestershire County Council has been rapped by the Local Government and Social Care Ombudsman (LGSCO) for causing a father an "injustice" by failing to secure speech and language therapy that his child needed due to being on an Education, Health and Care Plan (ECHP).

According to the ruling by the ombudsman, the father, called Mr X, tried to get therapy for his son after having a previous session in 2023; however was forced to complain due to long NHS waiting times.

The NHS told Mr X to contact Leicestershire County Council, where staff suggested the father speak to the child's school and the council's Special Educational Needs Assessment Service (SENA).

The council's Special Educational Needs Assessment Service later responded and said it "did not arrange" therapy and his son "had been discharged by the NHS", so he should ask the NHS to provide it. Alternatively, he could pay for it privately.

Mr X told council bosses his child had not been discharged but was entitled to the therapy in their EHC Plan, before complaining to the ombudsman after the council apologised for a delay of almost two months in responding.

The ombudsman found that Mr X's child was not receiving the therapy they needed, and the council failed to arrange it for them and "wrongly suggested" the child had been discharged from the NHS – which it acknowledged in a later follow-up to his complaint.

The LGSCO described it as "inappropriate" that council bosses suggested that Mr X contact his child's school and the SENA (Special Educational Needs Assessment Service).

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It also found that the council failed "to secure [therapy]" which caused Mr X "significant avoidable frustration" and his son "missed out on the provision they were entitled to" between June 2025 and February 2026.

The council's complaints handling was "poor" due to it going through the stage one complaint process twice and delaying issuing its stage two response by seven weeks, the report said.

As a result, the ombudsman told Leicestershire County Council bosses to apologise to Mr X and pay him £200 to remedy the frustration that it dealt to the father.

It also told the council to review the case and questioned why it kept placing the burden of arranging the speech therapy sessions on Mr X and failed to step in to arrange them itself.

A spokesperson for Leicestershire County Council said: "We have apologised to the father of the child in question, and regret any distress or frustration that may have been caused.

"We will also learn from this and identify the steps we need to take to stop this happening again, and report these findings to the ombudsman to ensure they're comfortable with the actions we've taken."