Summary: We will not investigate this complaint that the Council has failed to ensure the complainant’s daughter can access education and failed to identify a specialist placement appropriate for her needs. This is because it is unlikely we would seek to add anything significant to the remedy the Council has already offered.

The complaint

1. The complainant, who I will refer to as Mr X, complains that the Council has failed to ensure his daughter can access education and failed to identify a specialist placement appropriate for her needs.

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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 effect 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 an investigation if we decide the tests set out in our Assessment Code are not met. (Local Government Act 1974, section 24A(6), as amended)

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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. Mr X’s daughter has special educational needs and an Education Health and Care Plan (EHCP). Mr X says the mainstream school his daughter attends cannot meet her needs and has provided an inadequate, part time timetable. In addition to the negative impact this has on his daughter’s education, Mr X says it has prevented him from working and has caused distress and uncertainty for his family.
6. The evidence indicates that the EHCP annual review was held in November 2022, and a request was made for a new placement. Mr X complains that no new placement has been identified. He says his daughter needs a specialist placement and complains that there is no indication that the Council can make one available for the start of the new school year in September 2023.
7. In response to the complaint, the Council has accepted that it has failed so far to identify a suitable placement and that the process has been subject to delay. It has apologised and has offered a symbolic payment. The amended EHCP was issued in May 2023, naming mainstream education, not specialist. It is open to Mr X to appeal to the First-tier Tribunal (Special Educational Needs and Disability) to ask for a specific specialist setting.
8. The Ombudsman will not investigate this complaint because it is unlikely we would add anything significant to the investigation the Council has already carried out.
9. It is not for the Ombudsman to express a view on whether a particular school, or type of school, can meet Mr X’s daughter’s needs. But the Council has accepted that a new placement is needed and that it has delayed the process of finding one. Our intervention is not required to establish this. The question for us is whether investigation would be likely to achieve anything significant.
10. The Council has offered Mr X a symbolic payment of £2700 in recognition of nine months during which his daughter was not able to access full-time education. He regards this as insufficient. But it is broadly in line with what the Ombudsman would seek to achieve if we were to investigate, so investigation would be unlikely to achieve anything substantial. Our intervention is not therefore warranted.

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Final decision

11. We will not investigate Mr X’s complaint because it is unlikely we would achieve anything substantial by doing so.

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Investigator's decision on behalf of the Ombudsman