The Ombudsman's final decision
Summary: We will not investigate this complaint about education transport for Mr X’s daughter and other matters. Investigation of the transport complaint would be unlikely to lead to a different outcome. Matters concerning an assessment in 2016 are late, and there is no good reason to exercise discretion to investigate them now.
The complaint
Mr X said education transport provided for his daughter failed to arrive on the first day of the academic year in 2022. He said there were difficulties with the transport of the first day of the 2021 academic year, too, and the Council was wrong to refuse his complaint about that on grounds of time. He said the Council had failed to meet his daughter’s needs for some time, and it was only when he paid for an assessment that it recognised her difficulties.
The Ombudsman’s role and powers
The Ombudsman investigates 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 may decide not to continue with an investigation if we decide further investigation would not lead to a different outcome. (Local Government Act 1974, section 24A(6)) 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 law says we cannot normally investigate a complaint when someone can appeal to a tribunal. However, we may decide to investigate if we consider it would be unreasonable to expect the person to appeal. (Local Government Act 1974, section 26(6)(a), 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.
I considered the Ombudsman’s Assessment Code.
My assessment
Regardless of whether what happened on the first day of the 2021 academic year is just less or just more than a year before Mr X complained to the Council, that and what happened on the first day of the 2022 academic year represent two single incidents of uncertainty and inconvenience for Mr X’s family a year apart. I note that Mr X’s daughter’s condition means she is more than ordinarily susceptible to anxiety created by uncertainty. However, in the absence of any evidence that transport was disrupted by repeated incidents or regularly failed, we would be unlikely to ask for more than an apology, which the Council has already offered for the recent incident.
The receipt for the assessment is more than six years old. Even if the Council had agreed in 2016 the assessment was necessary, then had refused to pay it, Mr X could have complained to us much sooner. If the Council did not accept the necessity of the assessment, Mr X’s decision to arrange it would also not be separable from the process of determining his child’s special educational needs, which would have been for a SEND Tribunal. The nature of the child’s needs at school, and whether the Council made the right provision for them, is also likely to be outside our jurisdiction by virtue of lateness, or inseparability from the role of the SEND tribunal.
Final decision
We will not investigate Mr X’s complaint because: Investigation of the events of the first day of education transport on two dates in 2021 and 2022 is unlikely to lead to a different outcome; The matter so the assessment invoice from 2016 is late, and there is no good reason to exercise discretion to investigate this now, even if it is separable from the role of the SEND Tribunal; and The provision arranged for Mr X’s child in previous years is similarly either a matter not separable from the right of appeal to the SEND Tribunal about the content of any EHC Plan, or the refusal to issue one, and/or a late matter that there is no good reason to exercise discretion to investigate.
Investigator's decision on behalf of the Ombudsman