The Ombudsman's final decision
Summary: We will not investigate Ms X’s complaint about the Council's refusal to provide free school transport for her child, and matters related to her appeal. There is no worthwhile outcome achievable by our investigation.
The complaint
Ms X complains the Council refused free school transport for her child. She says the appeal panel failed to properly consider her circumstances and did not handle the appeal properly.
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: there is not enough evidence of fault to justify investigating, or any injustice is not significant enough to justify our involvement, or 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))
How I considered this complaint
I considered information provided by Ms X and the Council.
I considered the Ombudsman’s Assessment Code.
My assessment
The Council told us it completed further assessments following Ms X’s appeal and decided to provide free school transport for her child, Y. This is the outcome Ms X wants. Further investigation into the Council’s decision making is unlikely to achieve anything more, therefore I will not investigate this.
Ms X is unhappy the Council’s decision letter contained incorrect sensitive information about Y which was not raised during the meeting. However, the Council noted Ms X provided this information in her written case. There is not enough evidence of fault by the Council in this regard to justify investigating.
Ms X says the meeting was unavoidably delayed, felt rushed and the panel members were non-medical professionals who seemed unaware of her reasons for appealing.
Evidence shows the Council made Ms X aware of the duration of the meeting at the time of arranging it, and that while not compulsory, it was advised she attends to present her reasons for appeal. While I appreciate Ms X felt distressed by the discussion, the government guidance on the matter does not require panel members to be medically trained to make a balanced decision.
Further, the Council apologised to Ms X for delays in issuing its decision following the appeal. I do not consider this alone caused Ms X a significant enough injustice to justify our involvement.
Final decision
We will not investigate Ms X’s complaint because there is no worthwhile outcome achievable by our investigation.
Investigator's decision on behalf of the Ombudsman