The Ombudsman's final decision
Summary: We will not investigate this complaint about fault on the Council’s part in the process of assessing the complainant’s son’s needs and issuing an Education Health and Care plan. This is because the complaint has already been upheld and investigation would not lead to a different outcome.
The complaint
The complainant, Mrs X, complains that the Council was at fault in the process of her son’s Education Health and Care Needs Assessment (EHCNA) and in responding to her subsequent complaint.
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 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.
My assessment
Mrs X’s son has an Education Health and Care (EHC) plan. Mrs X complains that the Council was at fault in the process of assessing her son’s needs. Specifically, she identifies what she sees as flaws in communication and the process of identifying a school placement, as well as significant delay in issuing the final EHC plan.
Mrs X argues that fault on the Council’s part has caused unnecessary worry and uncertainty and has had a detrimental impact on her son’s education. She further complains that the Council took too long to respond to her complaint.
The complaint correspondence demonstrates that the Council has upheld Mrs X’s complaint. The Ombudsman will not normally investigate upheld complaints as there is little to be gained by doing so. We will not comment on the fault identified in the course of the EHCNA and production of the EHC plan because it is not separable for the outcome of the EHCNA and the content of the EHC plan itself. If Mrs X believed the fault led to a flawed EHC plan, her recourse was to use her right to appeal. There is no role for the Ombudsman.
The exception is the matter of the delay to the EHC plan, which is something the Ombudsman can consider. The question here is whether our intervention is likely to lead to an outcome which is significantly different from that already achieved. The delay amounts to approximately three months. The £300 symbolic payment the Council has offered Mrs X is in line with the remedy the Ombudsman would be likely to recommend in the circumstances of the case. There is no prospect that investigation would lead to a significantly different outcome and our intervention is not therefore warranted.
Where a complaint does not fall to be investigated, it is not a good use of our resources to investigate how a council has responded to the complaint, and we will not normally do so. That is the case here.
Final decision
We will not investigate Mrs X’s complaint because our intervention would not lead to a different outcome.
Investigator's decision on behalf of the Ombudsman