Summary: We will not investigate this complaint that the Council has made unreasonable demands for evidence regarding the complainant’s daughter’s Elective Home Education and has failed to respond reasonably to his questions. This is because investigation would achieve nothing significant.

The complaint

1. The complainant, Mr X, complains that the Council has made unreasonable demands for evidence regarding his daughter’s Elective Home Education and has failed to respond reasonably to his questions.

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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 is electively home educated. Mr X complains that the Council’s Elective Home Education team has made repeated demands for information about his daughter’s education. He contends that this amounts to monitoring in excess of the informal enquiries the Council is permitted to make. Mr X says the Council’s approach amounts to harassment.
6. Mr X further complains that the Council has failed to answer questions he has asked about its approach to the covert recording of children and the basis for its assertion that his daughter does not have the right to withhold her work.
7. Where a child is electively home educated, the law requires councils to enquire about the education provided to them. Councils have a duty to ensure the child is being suitably educated. The information needed to satisfy the test of whether suitable education is being provided depends on the facts of the case and judgement of the council.
8. Parents are under no obligation to respond to a council’s enquiries. But, where parents do not provide sufficient evidence, councils can serve “notice to satisfy” and can move to obtaining a School Attendance Order. It the parent does not comply the council may prosecute. Ultimately, it is for the court to decide whether the child’s elective home education is suitable.
9. Mr X disagrees with the way the Council has approached its duty to gather information. For its part, the Council holds that its actions are consistent with its duty and with the relevant guidance and caselaw. We will not take a view on this matter. If Mr X believes the Council is asking for information to which it is not entitled, he does not have to provide it. It will then be for the Council to decide whether to take legal action, against which Mr X will be able to mount a defence. There is no role for us in these circumstances.
10. The correspondence shows that the Council has not failed to answer Mr X’s questions. Rather, it has not answered them to his satisfaction. The questions themselves are not matters on which the Ombudsman would wish to express a view and investigation would not therefore add anything further to the responses Mr X has received from the Council.

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Final decision

11. We will not investigate Mr X’s complaint because our intervention would achieve nothing significant.

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Investigator's decision on behalf of the Ombudsman