The mother of a 12-year-old girl with severe learning difficulties has been awarded £4,000 compensation because Staffordshire County Council took too long to assess her daughter’s educational needs. The Local Government Ombudsman criticised the authority for spending more than two-and-a-half years compiling information about the girl and her ‘complex difficulties’.
Birmingham Post, June 7, 1997

Haringey Council has described government grants to improve school access for disabled pupils as a ‘drop in the ocean’. Haringey say they need millions – not thousands – to make designated schools accessible to all pupils.
Wood Green and Tottenham Weekly Herald, June 11, 1997

Education Secretary David Blunkett is to be asked to keep a Tyneside girl with special needs in a mainstream school. Jemma Jessop’s parents, Valerie and Les, will ask Mr Blunkett to give more rights to parents like them to pick their daughter’s school. The couple are fighting proposals by North Tyneside Council to take Jemma out of St Peter’s Primary in Wallsend and send her to a special school.
Newcastle upon Tyne Evening Chronicle, June 13, 1997

The mother of a three-year-old disabled girl has been told she must pay £7,000 if she wants her daughter to attend her village school. Juliet Palmer wants Zoe to go to her local school so she can be with all her friends. But Suffolk County Council says it cannot afford to adapt a toilet door, install two wheelchair ramps and install a chair lift for her at Thurston Primary School, near Bury St Edmunds. Council officials have said they can only take Zoe if her family pays the £7,000 cost of the work.
The Express, June 17, 1997

A mother has been awarded £5,000 compensation after an eight-year battle to get her disabled son into a mainstream school. Rahila Gupta was forced to wait too long while Brent Council decided whether or not her son Nihal could be taught alongside able-bodied youngsters, according to an investigation by local government ombudsman Edward Osmotherly.
Wembley and Brent Times, June 26,1997