Summary: We will not investigate Miss X’s complaint about the Council issuing a school none attendance fixed penalty notice. It is unlikely we would achieve a significantly different outcome.

The complaint

1. Miss X says the Council should not have issued a fixed penalty notice (FPN) for her child’s school none attendance.

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The Ombudsman’s role and powers

2. We cannot investigate most complaints about what happens in schools. (Local Government Act 1974, Schedule 5, paragraph 5(2), as amended).
3. 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:
• any fault has not caused injustice to the person who complained; or
• any injustice is not significant enough to justify our involvement; or
• we could not add to any previous investigation by the organisation; or
• further investigation would not lead to a different outcome. (Local Government Act 1974, section 24A(6), as amended, section 34(B))

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How I considered this complaint

4. I considered information provided by Miss X.
5. I considered the Ombudsman’s Assessment Code.

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My assessment

6. The Council issued a school none attendance FPN in March 2023 to Miss X for her child Y. The next day Miss X wrote to the Council and set out why she believed the Council should not have issued the FPN. The Council considered her comments. It consulted with relevant officers. It revoked the FPN in April, less than six weeks after it had been issued.
7. Miss X continued her complaint. She said the Council should never have issued the FPN. She said some of the absences marked as unauthorised by Y’s school should not have been so marked. She says the officer who issued the FPN should have consulted with the SEN team and the exclusions part of the attendance team. She says the Council did not follow its own policy. She says she and Y suffered distress from the FPN.
8. The Council in reply to Miss X’s complaint explained the process and that it was not responsible for the decision on which sessions should be unauthorised. This is the school’s role. It said detailed discussions on why a child may have had unauthorised absences did not always happen before a FPN is issued and Y’s case met the FPN threshold as they had been out of school for more than 10 sessions. It said it did not offer compensation for a person having to follow due process.
9. Miss X says the Council should apologise for issuing the FPN.

Analysis

10. It is unlikely our investigation would lead to a different outcome. It is due process for the Council to issue a FPN and then consider the parent’s response. In addition:
• We cannot consider a school’s decision whether to authorise an absence for the reasons set out in paragraph two.
• Any distress to Y is unlikely to be able to be shown to be the direct result of any Council action here. The Council did not notify Y of the FPN.
• We do not consider it significant distress to have to complain through the organisation’s complaint procedure, or a case to us.
• There was no significant delay in revoking the FPN.

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Final decision

11. We will not investigate Miss X’s complaint because it is unlikely we would achieve a significantly different outcome.

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Investigator's decision on behalf of the Ombudsman