The Ombudsman's final decision
Summary: We have discontinued our investigation into this complaint, about the implementation of specialist educational provision, and other related matters. This is because the complaint is late, and because it would be disproportionate to investigate further, given the extensive investigation already undertaken by the Council.
The complaint
I will refer to the complainant as Mr C. Mr C’s mother, Ms H, represents him in his complaint.
Ms H complains the Council did not secure the specialist provision set out in Mr C’s education, health and care (EHC) plan during the academic year 2023/24, did not review his EHC plan between 2020 and 2024, delayed dealing with the complaint, and did not communicate with her 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 we could not add to any previous investigation by the organisation, or further investigation would not lead to a different outcome (Local Government Act 1974, section 24A(6), as amended, section 34(B)) 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)
How I considered this complaint
I considered evidence provided by Ms H and the Council as well as relevant law, policy and guidance.
I also shared a draft copy of this decision with each party for their comments.
What I found
Mr C is a young adult with significant learning difficulties, and has been subject to an EHC plan for several years.
In March 2024 Ms H made a formal complaint to the Council, concerning a failure to implement an aspect of the support Mr C required to enable him to attend college. After the Council responded to this in April, Ms H submitted a stage 2 complaint, expanding considerably on her initial complaint.
The Council decided to investigate Ms H’s complaint under the statutory children’s complaint procedure, and commissioned an independent investigator for this purpose. The investigator issued their report in February 2025, upholding the majority of Ms H’s complaint, and making a series of recommendations, including for a financial remedy for missed educational provision.
The Council then issued an adjudication letter, accepting the report’s findings, but agreeing to take different action than recommended by the investigator, including making a lower offer of financial remedy.
In October 2025, Ms H referred the complaint to the Ombudsman.
Analysis I will first observe the Council’s decision to use the statutory children’s complaints procedure is difficult to understand. The statutory procedure is intended for complaints about children’s social services, not education, which was the nature of Ms H’s complaint. In addition to this, Mr C was an adult throughout the relevant period. I note the stage 2 report shows the investigator also raised this point, but for reasons they did not record, the Council decided to proceed anyway.
This said, for several reasons, we should not continue our investigation of Ms H’s complaint.
First, I will note that part of her complaint to the Ombudsman concerns the Council’s alleged failure to complete annual reviews of Mr C’s EHC plan between 2020 and 2024. This did not form part of her complaint to the Council though, which means it is not something we can accept for investigation, regardless of any other consideration.
Second, the law says a person should approach the Ombudsman within 12 months of becoming aware of the issue they wish to complain about. This is called the ‘permitted period’.
Ms H complained to the Ombudsman in October 2025, but her complaint concerns matters that happened between 2020 and the end of the 2023/24 academic year. This means her whole complaint falls outside the permitted period and is late.
The law gives us some flexibility to disapply this restriction, where we consider it appropriate, but we must first be satisfied there is a good reason for the complainant’s delay in approaching us. I am not satisfied that is the case here though. I am conscious Ms H says the Council delayed dealing with her complaint; and I agree that the approximately 11 months it took from initial complaint in March 2024, to the stage 2 response in February 2025, was unusually protracted.
However, I cannot overlook that Ms H then waited a further eight months before referring her complaint to the Ombudsman. Although the children’s statutory complaint procedure normally includes a third stage as well, because it was not the appropriate procedure to use here anyway, we accepted Ms H’s complaint without requiring her to complete this. This means she was eligible to refer her complaint to the Ombudsman in February, and so I cannot say she approached us at the earliest possible opportunity. This means, in turn, that I cannot be satisfied there was a good reason for the delay.
Third, and putting the previous points to one side, I am not persuaded it would be proportionate for yet more public resources to be expended on investigating Ms H’s complaint. While it was not the appropriate procedure for this complaint, the stage 2 investigation was meticulously detailed and in far greater depth than an investigation by the Ombudsman could provide, with its report running to 161 pages (of which 100 cover the actual substantive investigation).
I acknowledge the Council did not give Ms H everything she wanted from the complaints process; but this fact alone does not justify further investigation by the Ombudsman. I do not consider we could reasonably add anything more of substance to the stage 2 investigation.
Taking these points together, therefore, I have discontinued my investigation of this complaint.
Decision I have discontinued my investigation.
Investigator's decision on behalf of the Ombudsman