Summary: We will not investigate Mrs X’s complaint about how the Council dealt with her request for home to school transport. There was some fault by the Council, but it did not cause a significant personal injustice. An investigation is not therefore warranted.

The complaint

1. The complainant, whom I shall refer to as Mrs X, complained about the Council’s handling of her request for home to school transport for her child. Mrs X says the Council’s actions led to her incurring avoidable costs.

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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, or
• any fault has not caused injustice to the person who complained, or
• any injustice is not significant enough to justify our involvement. (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 and the Council.
4. I considered the Ombudsman’s Assessment Code.

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What I found

Background

5. I have set out below a broad timeline of what happened. It is not meant to show everything, only some key points:
• 22 July 2024: The Council refused Mrs X’s application for transport to school for her child. Mrs X applied for transport after a move to a new address. The Council’s response said “It is [the Council’s] understanding that the chosen school is parental preference until the nearest suitable school that is able to offer a place from your new home address has been determined through reapplication to North Somerset Admissions…You have the right to an appeal which must be made in writing.” The letter contained more information about the appeals process and explained the first stage would take 20 working days.
• 14 August 2024: The Council refused a second application for transport. The refusal letter contained the same information as the first.
• 04 September 2024: Mrs X appealed the Council’s decision not to provide transport. The Council says it again told Mrs X to submit a new application for a school place to determine if the school applied for was the nearest to Mrs X’s home with spaces. The Council has since said it cannot obtain a copy of this information. The Council has also since apologised for not progressing the appeal.
• 18 October 2024: The Council received a third application from Mrs X for transport. The Council approved this on 30 October 2024. This was because Mrs X had applied for a school place through the Council’s admissions team. It was therefore able to say the school her child attended was the nearest suitable school to home and therefore qualified for transport.
• 04 November 2024: Transport started.

Assessment

6. Councils have a duty to provide free transport to certain groups of children. This includes children who are attending the nearest suitable school to home and who live beyond the relevant walking distance (two or three miles). Councils need to consider the availability of places at the time of application in deciding whether a child is attending the nearest suitable school. Where children are not attending the nearest suitable school because of parental preference, rather than them not being able to obtain a place at a closer school, the child will not usually be eligible for assistance.
7. In this case, the Council refused Mrs X’s first and second applications because it could not say her child was attending the nearest suitable school. To establish if they were, the Council needed Mrs X to reapply through its Admissions Team. The refusal letters, as set out in paragraph 6, explained this. The first two refusal letters also gave Mrs X the chance to appeal the decision not to provide transport. There is no fault by the Council here.
8. Mrs X then appealed for transport on 04 September. The Council has accepted some fault with what then happened. It cannot provide evidence it again told Mrs X to reapply for a school place. I cannot say what information the Council sent – but I note it had already twice explained the need to reapply.
9. It is clear though that the Council did not progress the appeal and that is fault. But in its final response to Mrs X’s complaint the Council said that even if it had progressed the appeal, it would not have changed the outcome. This was because Mrs X had still not submitted a fresh application to establish if her child was attending the nearest suitable school.
10. There was clearly some fault by the Council. But while the Council failed to progress the appeal, I cannot say it caused Mrs X a significant personal injustice. This is because it is unlikely the stage 1 review, which is carried out by an officer, would have changed the original decision. The Council had correctly applied its published policy and explained Mrs X needed to reapply for a school place.
11. It is possible that the stage 2 appeal and its closer scrutiny of the matter would have established Mrs X’s child was attending the nearest suitable school and was therefore eligible for transport. But based on the Council’s policy, it would take around 60 working days to complete a stage 1 and stage 2 appeal. From 04 September, when the appeal was submitted, 60 working days is 27 November. Transport was in place by 04 November – earlier than it would have been if there had not been fault by the Council and appeals process had been completed on time.
12. I cannot therefore say the Council’s failure to properly progress the appeal caused Mrs X any injustice other than frustration. Once Mrs X reapplied for a school place, as the Council had at least twice requested, it processed the transport application without delay and arranged transport.
13. There is not enough evidence of fault by the Council which caused a significant personal injustice to warrant an investigation.

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Final decision

14. We will not investigate Mrs X’s complaint because the identified fault did not cause a significant personal injustice.

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Investigator's decision on behalf of the Ombudsman