The Ombudsman's final decision
Summary: We will not investigate Ms X’s complaint about the Council’s decision not to provide a personal budget for her child, or how it provided the therapeutic provision specified in a Education Health and Care plan. That is because it is a late complaint.
The complaint
Ms X complained about the Council’s decision not to provide a personal budget to pay for the therapeutic provision specified in her child, Y’s Education Health and Care plan (EHC plan). Ms X said the therapists arranged by the Council did not have the correct training as specified in the EHC plan. She said that meant she had paid for private therapists since 2016.
Ms X wants the Council to apologise for its errors and reimburse her the cost of the private therapists.
The Ombudsman’s role and powers
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 The First-tier Tribunal (Special Educational Needs and Disability) considers appeals against council decisions regarding special educational needs. We refer to it as the SEND Tribunal in this decision statement.
How I considered this complaint
I considered information provided by the complainant and the Council.
I considered the Ombudsman’s Assessment Code.
My assessment
Ms X said she has asked the Council for a personal budget for Y since 2016. Ms X complained to the Council in 2018 and 2019 about its decision not to provide a personal budget for the speech and language therapy and occupational therapy specified in Y’s EHC plan.
Ms X subsequently appealed Y’s EHC plan in 2020. The SEND Tribunal directed for Y’s EHC plan to state the speech and language therapy would be delivered by a therapist “who is trained in Auditory Processing, Sensory Integration, Oral Motor Therapy and Working Memory”.
Ms X complained to the Council in September 2020 that the allocated therapists did not have the training specified by the SEND Tribunal. The Council wrote to Ms X in October 2020; it set out why it disagreed. It sent Ms X a first stage complaint response in November 2020 and a final stage response to her complaint in February 2021.
The Council communicated its decision to Ms X about the personal budgets in 2018 and 2019 and about the therapy provision in October 2020. Ms X did not complain to the Ombudsman until June 2022; therefore this is a late complaint and we should not investigate. We have discretion to set aside this restriction where we decide there are good reasons. In this case I have decided not to exercise discretion because it was reasonable to expect Ms X to have complained to us sooner.
Final decision
We will not investigate Ms X’s complaint because it is late.
Investigator's decision on behalf of the Ombudsman