Summary: We will not investigate this complaint about the Council’s decision regarding home to school transport for Mr X’s child. It is clear the Council has considered its possible duty and the case Mr X has put forward for an adjustment to provide transport to accommodate part-time attendance at school. Its decision that this is not necessary is one it was entitled to make.

The complaint

1. Mr X said the Council has wrongly decided his child must attend school full-time to receive home-to-school transport, despite the school having agreed to part-time attendance. He said the transport provided doubles the 25-minute journey time to school. He said the Council has not operated a proper appeal ort complaints process, and has failed to make a reasonable adjustment.

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The Ombudsman’s role and powers

2. 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.

(Local Government Act 1974, section 24A(6), as amended, section 34(B))

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How I considered this complaint

3. I considered information provided by the complainant.
4. I considered the Ombudsman’s Assessment Code.

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My assessment

5. The Council correspondence Mr X sent us shows the child attends a special school named in his Education Health and Care (EHC) Plan. I have seen no evidence that the EHC Plan specified part-time education. The Council said it accepted that the child would initially attend part-time to aid transition, but that it was surprised he was still attending part-time several months later. It stated it would not have agreed to this had it known in advance. Its rationale was that the school was a special school, and that it should have been able to cope with the child’s fatigue by making a reasonable adjustment to allow him to rest during the day. It stated that it would have called a review of the EHC Plan with a view to finding another school if it had felt the school was unable to meet the child’s needs. It considered the transport arrangements at the start and end of the school day met the child’s needs, and there was no need for transport to be provided to support part-time attendance.
6. It is not for me to agree or disagree with the Council’s logic unless it defies objective facts. The evidence of the correspondence is that the Council acted in a procedurally correct way by considering the case Mr X put forward and whether it needed to make an adjustment. This was a decision it was entitled to make. That Mr X takes a different view of his child’s needs is not evidence of fault by the Council.

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Final decision

7. We will not investigate Mr X’s complaint because there is not sufficient evidence of fault by the Council to warrant this.

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Investigator's decision on behalf of the Ombudsman