The Ombudsman's final decision
Summary: We will not investigate this complaint about delay by the Council in issuing an Education Health and Care Plan. Doing so would be unlikely to lead to a significantly different outcome.
The complaint
Mrs X said the Council failed to send paperwork after the review of her child’s Education Health and Care (EHC) Plan. She said she had had to constantly chase a college placement with an out-of-date EHC Plan. She said this had caused stress, particularly as there had been previous failures by the Council to follow the correct process. She said the Council had failed to answer her complaint properly or complete its complaint process.
The Ombudsman’s role and powers
We investigate 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 continue an investigation if we decide: further investigation would not lead to a different outcome, or there is no worthwhile outcome achievable by our investigation.
(Local Government Act 1974, section 24A(6), as amended, section 34(B)) Under our information sharing agreement, we will share this decision with the Office for Standards in Education, Children’s Services and Skills (Ofsted).
How I considered this complaint
I considered information provided by the complainant.
I considered the Ombudsman’s Assessment Code.
My assessment
The Council’s final response to Mrs X’s complaint apologised that it had taken longer than the statutory time limit to issue an amended EHC Plan for her child after a review held in October 2023. Mrs X told me the Council finally issued the EHC Plan on 5 April 2024 after much chasing and work by her.
There is no doubt there was fault by the Council, which not only exceeded the statutory time limit, but also missed the deadline of 31 March 2024 for issuing an EHC Plan for transfer to post-16. I also note we have previously found fault with the Council’s actions in similar matters before October 2023 in complaint 23 004 633.
I do not doubt the delay caused Mrs X stress and worry given the previous context. However, the EHC Plan the Council issued has named the provision Mrs X wanted for September 2024, so that has been settled five months before it is due to start. The Council apologised to Mrs X in March 2024 for the delay. We would not investigate in order to answer Mrs X’s remaining questions about what happened, and doing so would be unlikely to lead to a significantly different remedy than the apology already offered by the Council given the placement requested has been agreed well before it is due to start.
Final decision
We will not investigate Mrs X’s complaint because doing so would be unlikely to lead to a different outcome.
Investigator's decision on behalf of the Ombudsman