North Northamptonshire Council (24 006 050)
Category : Education > Alternative provision
Decision : Closed after initial enquiries
Decision date : 15 Sep 2024
The Ombudsman's final decision:
Summary: We will not investigate this complaint about educational provision for Mrs X’s child in the year 2022-23. The complaint is late and there is no good reason to investigate this matter now.
The complaint
- Mrs X said the Council failed to find a school place for her child for a year after they moved to the area.
The Ombudsman’s role and powers
- The Local Government Act 1974 sets out our powers but also imposes restrictions on what we can investigate.
- 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 information provided by the complainant.
- I considered the Ombudsman’s Assessment Code.
My assessment
- A letter from the Council Mrs X provided which was dated in March 2023 stated that it had recently been able to offer her child a place at her preferred school for September 2023. It apologised, offered her the opportunity to escalate her complaint, and provided our details if she was dissatisfied. The latter and Mrs X’s complaint, taken together, indicate the matter complained of involved the school year 2022-23. Mrs X was aware of her child’s absence from education and the Council’s response to it more than a year before she contacted us. I would have expected her to contact us much sooner as by the end of March 2023 she was aware of her child’s absence from education and that this would continue until the end of the summer term that year. Had she chosen to pursue remedy with the Council and been held up or refused, there would still have been time to approach us much sooner.
Final decision
- We will not investigate Mrs X’s complaint because it is late and there is no good reason to exercise the discretion available to us to investigate it now.
Investigator's decision on behalf of the Ombudsman