Summary: We will not investigate this complaint about alternative educational provision for Mrs X’s child. There is not enough evidence of fault causing injustice in the Council’s actions to warrant our further involvement.

The complaint

1. Mrs X said the Council failed to meet its duty to make suitable alternative educational provision for her child from January 2025 until the end of the school year. She said this meant her child could not complete their GCSE subjects or meet the entry requirements for A levels.

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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, or
• any injustice is not significant enough to justify our involvement.

(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. The child was out of education for two school terms. The Council and Mrs X disagree whether the educational offers the Council made were suitable.
6. We are only likely to find injustice caused by fault if the Council failed to make an offer the child could have engaged with and which would have led to the desired outcome. That is unlikely to be the case here.
7. The child had experienced difficulty engaging with education since 2022. That is not the child’s fault, but it would have made the Council’s task more difficult in finding educational provision the child could have engaged with. Both parties referred to the child making attempts to engage with education in 2025, but being unable to do so. And it is clear the Council made educational offers. While Mrs X disagrees with the Council’s rationale for the offers it made, it could reach the view it did about what would best assist the child. Were we to investigate, it is unlikely we would find the child would have engaged with a specific offer not made by the Council that would thereby have led to achieving the A level entry qualifications needed.

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Final decision

8. We will not investigate Mrs X’s complaint because there is not enough evidence of fault by the Council causing injustice to warrant investigation by us.

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Investigator's decision on behalf of the Ombudsman