Summary: Mrs X complains the Council did not deal properly with her son Y’s education, causing him to miss educational provision. The Council is at fault because it did not properly consider s19 alternative education provision. Y suffered missed education provision. The Council should apologise to Mrs X, repay costs of tuition and make a symbolic payment in respect of missed educational provision.

The complaint

1. The complainant, whom I shall refer to as Mrs X, complains the Council has not dealt properly with her son Y’s education because it has not provided s19 alternative education provision between December 2024 and July 2025.
2. Mrs X says Y has missed education provision.

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The Ombudsman’s role and powers

3. We investigate complaints about ‘maladministration’ and ‘service failure’. In this statement, I have used the word fault to refer to these. We must also consider whether any fault has had an adverse impact on the person making the complaint. I refer to this as ‘injustice’. If there has been fault which has caused an injustice, we may suggest a remedy. (Local Government Act 1974, sections 26(1) and 26A(1), as amended)
4. If we are satisfied with an organisation’s actions or proposed actions, we can complete our investigation and issue a decision statement. (Local Government Act 1974, section 30(1B) and 34H(i), as amended)
5. Under our information sharing agreement, we will share this decision with the Office for Standards in Education, Children’s Services and Skills (Ofsted).

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How I considered this complaint

6. I considered evidence provided by Mrs X and the Council as well as relevant law, policy and guidance.
7. Mrs X and the Council had an opportunity to comment on my draft decision. I considered any comments before making a final decision.

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What I found

Law, guidance and policies

8. Section 19 of the Education Act 1996 says that councils must arrange suitable alternative educational provision when it finds that a child is unable to attend school because of a permanent exclusion, an illness, or for any other reason which make the school inaccessible to the child. The alternative educational provision must be suitable to the child’s age, ability and aptitude, and any special educational needs they have.
9. If a council discovers a child is absent from school for an extended period, it should consider the reasons for this, and take account of evidence from relevant parties (such as the child’s school, parents, and medical professionals). It must then decide whether it has a duty to make alternative educational provision.
10. If a council wants to see medical or other evidence, it should ask for it at the earliest opportunity. The council should account for any challenges a parent might have in obtaining evidence, and review its position based on any new evidence it receives.
11. Councils should consider any attempts the school is making to support the child. This might involve sending work home for the child to complete, arranging disability related support, placing the child on a reduced timetable, or providing online education as a short-term measure. If there is a clear, effective, and time-bound plan for reintegration then there may be no immediate role for the council in providing alternative education.
12. If a child has an Education, Health and Care (EHC) Plan the council also has an ongoing duty to arrange the support guaranteed by the Plan. However, this might not always be possible, such as where the SEN support is designed for the child’s normal classroom setting.
13. Councils should also think about the steps needed to reintegrate the child back into their usual school setting, through ongoing conversations with relevant professionals and the parents.
14. We publish good practice guidance on how we expect councils to fulfil their responsibilities to identify and arrange alternative educational provision: Supporting children out of school (October 2025)
15. Our guidance says that councils should:

• consider all the reasons for a child’s absence from school, and make a written evidence-based decision about whether it will arrange alternative education provision;
• communicate this decision as a matter of good practice to parents and where it decides not to arrange alternative education tell parents the expectations about school attendance, and the potential consequences for continued absences;
• ensure the provision meets the individual needs of the child where it decides to arrange alternative education and explain its reasons for providing a part-time education if it decides the child cannot cope with full time provision;
• keep all cases of part-time education under review with a view to increasing when the child is able;
• work with parents and schools to draw up plans to reintegrate children to their normal educational setting as soon as possible, reviewing and amending plans as necessary; and
• ensure effective channels of communication between parents, internal teams, and external bodies (such as schools, and the NHS) so that issues are dealt with promptly by the right people, and that any complaints are identified and responded to under the relevant policy.

16. Councils also have some flexibility with regard to the time taken to set up alternative provision. However, they must make provision from the sixth day in exclusion cases, and they should do so in medical cases where it is clear the absence is for more than 15 school days.

What happened?

17. This is a brief chronology of key events. It does not contain everything I reviewed during my investigation.
18. Y attended School A. He stopped attending School A in January 2025. There was a reintegration plan for Y.
19. Mrs X contacted the Council in February and asked it to make alternative education provision for Y.
20. The Council wrote to Mrs X in March 2025. It said it had consulted with the headteacher of School A and said the advice available was to continue with a Team around the Family and that it would work with Mrs X and School A to ensure access to suitable provision.
21. Mrs X complained to the Council in April 2025 that it had failed to arrange s19 alternative education for Y. The Council did not uphold her complaint that it had failed to provide alternative education but did upheld her complaint that its March letter was not clear and did not expressly refuse alternative provision, or signpost appeal rights.
22. In May 2025, Mrs X escalated her complaint to stage 2 of the Council’s complaints process. The Council responded in July 2025, the Council partly upheld her complaint. It proposed a financial remedy. Mrs X complained to the Ombudsman.

Analysis

23. The Council’s stage 2 response accepted that:
• Y was not receiving suitable education. It said the recorded attendance codes did not align with arrival times in Y’s reintegration plan. It accepted that it should have looked at this to ensure the school’s attendance coding was correct and that the school should have been contacted and given advice. It said a referral to its Access to Education Panel would be made.
• Based on the information provided by Y’s school, there is no evidence that Y had received a full-time or suitable education offer from School A and the provision of education had been reliant on parental arrangements and funding.
• It had not contacted Mrs X or the school to monitor arrangements after its stage 1 complaint response.
• Y should have been provided with alternative provisions and offered a financial remedy of a payment of £500.
• There was a need for learning including holding training sessions for schools on attendance coding and monitoring.
24. In response to my enquiries, the Council accepted that:
• No referral to the Access to Education Panel was made.
• Actions outlined in the Council’s letter to Mrs X in March, (referenced in paragraph 20 above), were not carried out.
• As a consequence, it could not rely on these actions as evidence that it fulfilled its duty under Section 19 of the Education Act 1996 to arrange suitable education for a child unable to attend school.
• The Stage 2 complaint response was initially due on 24 June 2025; however, a new point of complaint was added to the complaint on 18 June. At this stage, the council advised that the deadline would need to be extended to 8 July to allow sufficient time to address the new point. Regrettably, additional time was required to fully address the Stage 2 complaint, and the response was issued on 18 July 2025. On 10 July, the council advised Mrs X of her right to go to the LGSCO due to the delay.
• The Stage 2 complaint response acknowledged that Section 19 alternative education should have been considered for Harry. However, this recommendation was not acted upon, which resulted in a further delay in access to appropriate alternative provision. The council recognises that its duty under Section 19 can be triggered by parental request alone and is not dependent on a school referral.
• there were shortcomings in its handling of the Section 19 request.
• The Council offered to make a formal apology to Mrs X for any distress this caused.
25. I agree with the Council. It failed to properly consider the reasons for Y’s absence from school and did not act to provide s19 alternative education when it should have done. Mrs X incurred financial loss by paying for tuition for Y, and Y missed some educational provision over a period between March 2025 to July 2025, a period of approximately one and a half terms.
26. I have seen the invoices for tuition which were paid by Mrs X.

Ombudsman’s Guidance on Remedies

27. Where fault has resulted in a loss of educational provision, we will usually recommend a remedy payment of between £900 and £2,400 per term to acknowledge the impact of that loss. The figure should be based on the impact on the child and take account of factors such as:
• the child’s special educational needs;
• any educational provision – full-time or part-time, without some or all of the specified support – that was made during the period; and
• whether additional provision can now remedy some or all of the loss.
28. The symbolic payment is intended to remedy injustice caused to the child from missing provision, as well as the normal range of consequential injustice also caused to the family due to this fault, for example; the additional caring responsibilities that occur from a child being out of education and avoidable disruption to daily routine.
29. I have considered all the information available to me about Y, including that provided by Mrs X, when deciding on an appropriate remedy.

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Action

30. To remedy the outstanding injustice caused by the fault I have identified, the Council should take the following action within 4 weeks of my final decision:
• Apologise to Mrs X for the fault found. We publish guidance on remedies which sets out our expectations for how organisations should apologise effectively to remedy injustice. The organisation should consider this guidance in making the apology I have recommended in my findings.
• Pay Mrs X £900 in respect of tuition costs she incurred between March and July 2025.
• Pay Mrs X £1,500 in respect of missed educational provision in the same time period.
• Review the circumstances of this case and provide an action plan addressing its failure to properly consider s19 alternative education provision and its subsequent failure to take actions it had committed to.
31. The Council should provide us with evidence it has complied with the above actions.

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Decision

32. I find fault causing injustice. The Council has agreed actions to remedy injustice.

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Investigator's decision on behalf of the Ombudsman