The Ombudsman's final decision
Summary: We will not investigate this complaint about how the Council dealt with an assessment of a child’s needs, and its decision to refuse the complainants request to reimburse school fees. This is because there is insufficient evidence of fault and further investigation would not lead to a different outcome.
The complaint
The complainant, who I will call Mr X, complains that the Council delayed carrying out an assessment of his son’s Special Educational Needs (SEN), delayed issuing a Education Health and Care (EHC) plan and refused to reimburse him for school fees that he paid. Mr X would like the fees to be reimbursed.
The Ombudsman’s role and powers
The Ombudsman investigates complaints about ‘maladministration’ and ‘service failure’, which we call ‘fault’. We must also consider whether any fault has had an adverse impact on the person making the complaint, which we call ‘injustice’. We provide a free service, but must use public money carefully. We do not start or may decide not to continue with an investigation if we decide: there is not enough evidence of fault to justify investigating, or further investigation would not lead to a different outcome.
(Local Government Act 1974, section 24A(6)) We cannot investigate late complaints unless we decide there are good reasons. Late complaints are when someone takes more than 12 months to complain to us about something a council has done. (Local Government Act 1974, sections 26B and 34D, as amended) The law says we cannot normally investigate a complaint when someone can appeal to a tribunal. However, we may decide to investigate if we consider it would be unreasonable to expect the person to appeal. (Local Government Act 1974, section 26(6)(a), as amended) The First-tier Tribunal (Special Educational Needs and Disability) considers appeals against council decisions regarding special educational needs. We refer to it as the SEND Tribunal in this decision statement.
How I considered this complaint
I considered information provided by the complainant and the Council.
I considered the Ombudsman’s Assessment Code.
My assessment
In March 2021, the Council offered Mr X’s son a placement at his preferred secondary school, to start in September. This was a mainstream school, which I will call School A. The Council subsequently received a request for an EHC assessment from Mr X’s primary school. Mr X told the Council he would be making alternative arrangements for his son’s education until the EHC plan was issued. He subsequently paid for a term at a special school, which I will call School B. In November, the Council issued a final EHC plan naming School B.
I will not investigate Mr X’s complaint that his son’s needs would have been assessed sooner if the Council had not refused his assessment requests made as early as 2017. This is because these events happened too long ago, and it would have been reasonable for him to have used his right of appeal against the Council’s decision at the time to the SEND tribunal.
I will not investigate Mr X’s complaint that the Council should reimburse the fees he paid for School B for September to December. This is because the Council did not have a duty to arrange a specialist provision placement until it had issued a final EHC plan. I therefore cannot find the Council at fault for not doing so, and it was Mr X’s choice to make these alternative arrangements.
I will not investigate Mr X’s complaint that the Council delayed issuing his son’s EHC plan. Whilst the plan was delayed by around five weeks, the Council apologised for this delay. As the delay was a relatively short one, I consider an apology to be a suitable and proportionate remedy in the circumstances. Therefore, further investigation would not lead to a different outcome.
Final decision
We will not investigate Mr X’s complaint because there is insufficient evidence of fault and further investigation would not lead to a different outcome.
Investigator's decision on behalf of the Ombudsman