The Ombudsman's final decision
Summary: We will not investigate this complaint about the Council’s handling of the Education, Health and Care Plan process for the complainant’s child. It is unlikely an investigation would add anything to the Council’s response or achieve a different outcome.
The complaint
The complainant, whom I shall refer to as Miss X, complained the Council failed to provide information about her right of appeal to the SEND Tribunal. Miss X says this meant Y was left attending an inappropriate school. Miss X says this affected Y’s education and behaviour which has had an impact on the whole family.
The Ombudsman’s role and powers
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: we could not add to any previous investigation by the organisation, or further investigation would not lead to a different outcome, or there is no worthwhile outcome achievable by our investigation.
(Local Government Act 1974, section 24A(6), as amended, section 34(B))
How I considered this complaint
I considered information provided by the complainant and the Council.
I considered the Ombudsman’s Assessment Code.
Background
In response to Miss X’s complaint the Council accepted it had not sent information about her right of appeal to the SEND Tribunal. It had sent this information to Miss X in 2019 - but had failed to send it with EHC Plans issued in 2021, 2022 and 2023. The Council said Miss X had asked about a change of school for Y at various points, but her preferred schools had all been full. In January 2024 the Council had issued a final EHC Plan naming Miss X’s preferred school from September 2024. The Council said it did not believe its failure to send Miss X information about her appeal rights had affected the time taken to secure a different school place. The Council said it would be undertaking a training programme which would cover the type of information given to parents.
Assessment While I understand Miss X’s frustrations, we will not start an investigation into her complaint.
The Council was clearly at fault when it failed to advise Miss X of her right of appeal to the SEND Tribunal. But the Council has accepted this and put in place service improvements. If we were to investigate it is unlikely we would make any further recommendations. Miss X says the Council’s failure to advise her of her appeal rights left Y in an unsuitable school. But we could never say that if the Council had advised Miss X of her appeal rights that she would have used them, or what the outcome of any appeal would have been. We also could never say what impact Y remaining in their current school has had, or if things would have been different if the Council had told Miss X of her appeal rights. An investigation is not therefore appropriate.
Final decision
We will not investigate Miss X’s complaint because an investigation would not achieve a different outcome.
Investigator's decision on behalf of the Ombudsman