Derby City Council (19 018 717)

Category : Education > Alternative provision

Decision : Closed after initial enquiries

Decision date : 19 Mar 2020

The Ombudsman's final decision:

Summary: The Ombudsman will not investigate Miss X’s complaint about a lack of education to her child between 2015 and 2018. There are no good reasons why the late complaint rule should not apply.

The complaint

  1. The complainant, whom I shall call Miss X, says the Council failed to provide her child, Y, with a suitable education.

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The Ombudsman’s role and powers

  1. 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)
  2. We cannot investigate complaints about what happens in schools. (Local Government Act 1974, Schedule 5, paragraph 5(b), as amended)

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How I considered this complaint

  1. I considered the information Miss X provided with her complaint. Miss X had the opportunity to comment on a draft version of this decision.

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What I found

  1. Miss X says that her child, Y, left a school in 2015 because of bullying by other pupils. Miss X says she tried to find alternative schools and Y tried to start at some other schools. None of these worked, until Y started School Z in September 2018.
  2. Miss X says Y missed around three years of education. She says this is partly because of the schools’ involved actions, and partly because the Council did not help and support her, and Y, enough.
  3. We will not investigate a complaint about events known to Miss X for more than 12 months without good reasons. Here there are not because:
    • I am not confident there is a realistic prospect of reaching a sound, fair, and meaningful decision. This is particularly so because we cannot investigate the schools’ actions within the events. We can only investigate the Council’s duties and role.

And:

    • I am not satisfied that Miss X could not reasonably be expected to have complained sooner.

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Final decision

  1. The Ombudsman will not investigate this complaint. This is because there are no good reasons why the late complaint rule should not apply.

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Investigator's decision on behalf of the Ombudsman

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