Summary: Mrs B complained that the Council failed to provide transport for her son, C to attend his educational provisions for almost a year. We found the Council, failed to provide transport, delayed excessively in reaching a decision on C’s eligibility for transport and also in offering Mrs B a personal travel budget. The Council has agreed to apologise to Mrs B, pay her £500 and improve its procedures for the future.

The complaint

1. Mrs B complained that Suffolk County Council (the Council) in September 2023 stopped transport for her son, C, to his educational provisions and has failed to reinstate the transport or offer a viable alternative. Mrs B and her husband have had to transport their son (and their four other children with SEN), causing them significant distress, inconvenience and financial hardship.

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The Ombudsman’s role and powers

2. We investigate complaints about ‘maladministration’ and ‘service failure’. In this statement, I have used the word fault to refer to these. We must also consider whether any fault has had an adverse impact on the person making the complaint. I refer to this as ‘injustice’. If there has been fault which has caused significant injustice, or that could cause injustice to others in the future we may suggest a remedy. (Local Government Act 1974, sections 26(1) and 26A(1), as amended)
3. Service failure can happen when an organisation fails to provide a service as it should have done because of circumstances outside its control. We do not need to show any blame, intent, flawed policy or process, or bad faith by an organisation to say service failure (fault) has occurred. (Local Government Act 1974, sections 26(1), as amended)
4. If we are satisfied with an organisation’s actions or proposed actions, we can complete our investigation and issue a decision statement. (Local Government Act 1974, section 30(1B) and 34H(i), as amended)

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How I considered this complaint

5. I have considered the complaint and the documents provided by the complainant, made enquiries of the Council and considered the comments and documents the Council provided. Mrs B and the Council had an opportunity to comment on my draft decision. I considered any comments received before making a final decision.
6. Under our information sharing agreement, we will share this decision with the Office for Standards in Education, Children’s Services and Skills (Ofsted).

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What I found

School transport

7. Councils must make suitable home to school travel arrangements as they consider necessary for ‘eligible children’ of compulsory school age to attend their ‘qualifying school’. The travel arrangements must be made and provided free of charge. ‘Eligible children’ include:

• children living outside ‘statutory walking distance’ from the school (two miles for children under eight, three miles for children aged eight and above);
• children living within walking distance of the school but who cannot reasonably be expected to walk to school because of their special educational needs, disability or mobility problem;
• children living within walking distance of the school but who cannot walk to school because the route is unsafe; and
• children entitled on low-income grounds. (Education Act 1996, 508B(1) and Schedule 35B)

8. A child will not normally be eligible for free travel to school on the grounds of their special educational needs, disability, or mobility problem, or on the grounds that the route is unsafe, if they would be able to walk to school if they were accompanied.
9. A child will not normally be eligible solely because their parent’s work commitments or caring responsibilities mean they are unable to accompany their child themselves. Councils must consider cases where the parent says there are good reasons why they are unable to accompany their child, or make other suitable arrangements for their journey, and make a decision on the basis of the circumstances of each case.
10. Where the local authority determines that a child would be able to walk if they were accompanied, the general expectation is that the parent will accompany them or make other suitable arrangements for their journey to and from school. (Department of Education, Travel to school for children of compulsory school age statutory guidance 2023, paragraphs 47 to 52)

What happened

11. Mrs B’s son C has special educational needs and is unable to attend a mainstream school. The most recent finalised EHC Plan was issued in April 2022. It did not name a setting in Section I but referred to an Education Other Than at School package (EOTAS) consisting of a variety of alternative provisions.
12. From September 2022 to July 2023 the Council provided transport for C to attend two different provisions which were over three miles from C’s home. On 17 August 2023, following the annual review of C’s EHC Plan, Mrs B applied for transport to the new provisions starting in September 2023: four different addresses over five days. Given the new timings the existing provider was not able to continue, and shared transport was not suitable.
13. On 5 September 2023 the Council said it had approved the application. The Council said Mrs B informed it on the same day that the address of C’s placement for three of the five days had changed and was less than three miles from his home address. This meant he would not automatically be eligible for transport. Mrs B said the transport arrangements needed to be flexible, but the Council said this was not possible under a contracted travel service as it had to be a fixed arrangement. It said it would need to assess C’s entitlement to transport to all his provisions in conjunction with the family services team. It did not request any further information from Mrs B.
14. On 30 October 2023 Mrs B asked the Council to reimburse her for the journeys she had done since September 2023. On 3 November 2023 the Council replied that C’s entitlement was still being assessed and it would revisit its enquiries with the family services team in order to assess C’s transport entitlement. The Council did not request any further information from Mrs B.
15. On 9 November 2023 the Council offered to reimburse Mrs B for transporting C to his provisions since 11 September 2023. It asked her to provide details of any days he had missed so it could work out the exact amount. Mrs B provided some information but said she could not provide exact details for all the days since the start of term.
16. On 22 November 2023 Mrs B made a complaint because C had no transport and she and her husband were struggling to get C to his provisions each day. The Council responded at stage one of its complaints procedure. It said the previous flexible taxi arrangement was no longer available and Mrs B had made changes to the arrangements without the Council’s agreement which was unacceptable. Of the four placements, three were less than three miles from their home, so transport would not be provided. It offered a personal travel budget if the family needed flexibility.
17. Mrs B disputed the response the same day. She denied making any changes and said the arrangements were the same as previously. She said the Council, in refusing transport to the nearest provision, had not considered C’s needs as he was unable to walk unaccompanied and neither Mr nor Mrs B could go with him.
18. The Council said the timetable was slightly different and asked for clarification of how C got between some of his provisions. In December 2023 Mrs B confirmed a support worker took him on one day as he could not go alone, and no family member could take him on the other days.
19. In early January 2024 the Council confirmed it was tendering for a taxi firm to take on the contract from 15 January 2024.
20. In mid-January Mrs B escalated her complaint to stage two as C was still without transport after a term.
21. The Council confirmed it had only been able to find a taxi for one of the days and asked Mrs B more questions. Mrs B said the Council already had this information and requested the final EHC Plan with transport options by the end of the day so she could lodge an appeal.
22. The Council provided a further stage one response on 5 February 2024. It accepted that no transport had been in place for C since September 2023. It said that a taxi had started on 31 January 2024 for the provision furthest away from their home and it would reimburse Mrs B for the journeys she had made at 45p per mile for four journeys on that day every week since September. It said the Council needed to assess C to decide if he qualified for transport for under three miles due to his exceptional needs. It agreed C needed support to attend the provisions and offered to meet Mrs B to resolve the issues.
23. Mrs B met with the Council on 8 February 2024. There are no minutes of the meeting. The Council said the meeting agreed that C would need support to attend the provisions as he was not yet able to walk unaccompanied. The Council put the route out to tender but did not receive any viable bids, hence its offer of a personal travel budget, including additional exceptional payments for someone to accompany C when necessary. It promised to get back to her as soon as possible with a transport plan or a personal budget.
24. On 9 February 2024 it refused to consider her complaint at stage two as it considered the situation was being resolved following the meeting. On 20 February 2024 the Council offered to reimburse Mrs B £360 for travel to the provision on Wednesdays only. Mrs B queried why she had not received an offer for the other provisions. The Council replied that it wanted to keep the payments separate.
25. Mrs B complained to us at the end of February 2024.
26. The Council made further attempts to arrange transport for the other three days but was unsuccessful. On 10 May 2024 it offered Mrs B a personal travel budget of £1200 plus £39 per day for the extra tutor time at one of the provisions, back to September 2023. In August 2024 it clarified the offer included tutor support three times a week.
27. In response to my enquiries the Council said on 17 July 2024, it had offered Mrs B reimbursement of £678 for the mileage incurred since September 2023.

Analysis

28. The Council failed to put transport for any of C’s provisions in place until 31 January 2024 when it provided a taxi for one day a week to the provision furthest from their home. Since then, it did not provide transport or a personal travel budget for the remaining three days a week until May 2024. This was fault.
29. I understand the Council had concerns over the details of the provision changing after the application was made, but the Council was aware of this at the beginning of September 2023 and did not ask for any further information until mid-December 2023 over the distances involved or whether C could walk unaccompanied. I consider the Council should have resolved the issue of the address changes and whether C required accompaniment to the nearer provisions by the end of September 2024. It did not do so until 5 January 2024 and it did not confirm this explicitly to Mrs B until the meeting of 8 February 2024. The failure to do so is fault which has caused uncertainty, inconvenience and frustration to Mrs B.
30. The Council since January 2024 has made many attempts to find transport via a taxi contract but has been unsuccessful. This was largely due to circumstances outside the Council’s control and was service failure, but it is also fault.
31. The Council also took too long to get back to Mrs B after the meeting in February 2024 delayed in offering a personal travel budget for another three months. The delay was excessive and fault, causing Mrs B distress and frustration. This frustration was exacerbated by the failure of the Council to coherently explain why it was only offering her reimbursement for the journeys on one day of the week and not for all four.
32. Mrs B had to transport C to all his placements for over a term and three of the nearer ones until May 2024. This has caused distress and inconvenience to Mrs B along with some financial impact.
33. Although Mrs B has not accepted either the offer of reimbursement or the travel budget, I am satisfied that the offer for C is a reasonable way of resolving the issue: it gives Mrs B the flexibility to make her own arrangement whilst recognising that she and husband cannot accompany C and it has been backdated to September 2023.
34. The Council also failed to consider Mrs B’s complaint at stage two of its complaints procedure. It stated the complaint had been resolved when it had not been. By failing to carry out a stage two investigation the Council missed an opportunity to resolve the complaint at an earlier stage and prevent the drift and delay which ensued. This was further fault which caused Mrs B time and trouble.

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Agreed action

35. In recognition of the injustice caused to Mrs B, I recommended the Council within one month of the date of my final decision:
• apologises to Mrs B in accordance with our guidance;
• makes her a symbolic payment of £500; and
36. I also recommend within three months that:
• The Council reviews its transport procedures to ensure (as far as is practical) arrangements are in place for transport by the start of the school year, including cases involving children with an EHC Plan and that the Council is clear in its decisions regarding exceptional circumstances and accompaniment.
37. The Council has agreed to my recommendations and should provide us with evidence it has complied with the above actions.

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Final decision

38. I consider this is a proportionate way of putting right the injustice caused to Mrs B and I have completed my investigation on this basis.

Investigator’s decision on behalf of the Ombudsman

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Investigator's decision on behalf of the Ombudsman