Summary: Mr X complained that the Council caused delays when deciding his daughter’s special educational needs support, and failed to respond to his emails. We have found that the Council was at fault, and that this likely caused Mr X distress. The Council has agreed to make a symbolic payment to recognise his injustice.

The complaint

1. Mr X complains that the Council caused delays when deciding the support his daughter, Y, should receive for her special educational needs. He also says the Council failed to respond to his emails during the period of delay.
2. Mr X says the delay led to Y losing her place at a special school. He also says he suffered distress and inconvenience.

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The Ombudsman’s role and powers

3. 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)
4. If we are satisfied with a council’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)
5. 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 have and have not investigated

6. As part of the evidence Mr X sent me to support his complaint, he provided some correspondence from early and mid-2023.
7. 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)
8. Mr X complained to us in September 2024. In the absence of any obvious good reason why I should disregard our timeliness requirement, I have only investigated what happened from September 2023 onwards.

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How I considered this complaint

9. I considered evidence provided by Mr X and the Council as well as relevant law, policy and guidance.
10. Mr X and the Council had an opportunity to comment on my draft decision. I considered any comments before making a final decision.

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What I found

11. A child with special educational needs may have an education, health and care (EHC) plan. This document sets out their needs and what arrangements should be made to meet them.
12. Statutory government guidance (the ‘SEND code of practice’) says that, within four weeks of an annual review, the council must write to the child’s parent and tell them whether it has decided to keep the EHC plan as it is, amend it or cease it.
13. If the council has decided to amend the plan, it must issue a new one within a further eight weeks.
14. The Council held an annual review for Y in September 2023. Both Y’s school and Mr X felt her EHC plan needed amending.
15. The Council should have sent Mr X its decision on whether it would amend the plan within four weeks of the review. It did not write to him at all.
16. A further review was held in March 2024. The Council should have sent Mr X its amendment notice within four weeks (early April) and then issued Y’s amended EHC plan within a further eight weeks (early June). Each of these documents was issued more than three months late.
17. The Council was at fault for the lack of, or delayed, action following both annual reviews.
18. Mr X emailed the Council several times during the period of delay, and sometimes did not receive a response (or the response was itself delayed). This was also fault by the Council.
19. It is worth noting that the Council allocated a SEND caseworker to Y’s case in early July 2024, and, from that point, everything happened much quicker and without noticeable delay.
20. But, for the ten months preceding that, little work was done to amend Y’s EHC plan, and this is what ultimately caused the significant delay.
21. I am satisfied that the delay likely caused Mr X distress. His emails indicate his frustration, and this was surely heightened when the Council did not respond to them. He went to great efforts to persuade the Council to speed up the process.
22. The Council should provide a remedy to Mr X which recognises his injustice, in line with the Ombudsman’s remedies guidance.
23. I am less sure about the injustice caused to Y. Mr X believes that the delay led to her losing a potential place at his preferred school. This may be true; however, there is no evidence to provide any indication either way.
24. Y remains in a school which the Council considers suitable, and any disagreement Mr X has with that decision can be appealed to the SEND Tribunal (and may already have been).
25. I cannot comment further on the suitability of Y’s school, and therefore will recommend no remedy for her injustice.
26. The Council is of the view that the issues in its handling of Y’s case were caused by staff shortages. It says it has fixed this by hiring new staff and putting a comprehensive training regime in place.
27. This appears a reasonable course of action. Time will tell whether it is effective.

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Action

28. Within a month, the Council has agreed to make a symbolic payment to Mr X of £500 to recognise his likely distress from the delay to Y’s EHC plan.
29. The Council will provide us with evidence it has made this payment.

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Decision

30. The Council was at fault, and this caused Mr X an injustice, which the Council will now take action to address.

Investigator’s decision on behalf of the Ombudsman

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Investigator's decision on behalf of the Ombudsman