Summary: We will not investigate Mrs X’s complaint that the Council has wrongly refused to assess her child via its children with disabilities team rather than its children in need team. There is not enough evidence of fault by the Council to warrant our involvement.

The complaint

1. Mrs X said the Council had wrongly refused to assess her child’s needs via its children with disabilities (CWD) team, resulting in his needs not being met. She said it had instead assessed him three times via its children in need (CIN) team.

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The Ombudsman’s role and powers

2. 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 there is not enough evidence of fault to justify investigating. (Local Government Act 1974, section 24A(6), as amended, section 34(B))

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How I considered this complaint

3. I considered information provided by the complainant and the Council.
4. I considered the Ombudsman’s Assessment Code.

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My assessment

5. In its final response to Mrs X’s complaint, the Council accepted her child has largely non-physical disabilities. But it laid out its reasons why the child should be served and assessed by the CIN team rather than the CWD team. That is a judgement the Council is entitled to make. It is clear from the correspondence that the child’s presenting conditions are not essentially in dispute. It is also clear the Council has identified provision it believes is sufficient to meet them after assessing the child’s needs three times. An educational psychologist’s recent report provided by Mrs X confirms the child is not always able to access all the provision offered due to his conditions. Mrs X maintains that her child needs further provision. However, that does not automatically mean the Council’s preceding assessments were faulty. We cannot act as an appeal against the Council’s decisions where it has acted properly in reaching them.

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Final decision

6. We will not investigate Mrs X’s complaint because there is not enough evidence of fault by the Council to warrant our involvement.

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Investigator's decision on behalf of the Ombudsman