Summary: We will not investigate Mr X’s complaint about a penalty notice issued due to his child’s unauthorised absence from school, and the way the Council handled his complaint. This is because we have not found enough evidence of fault to justify a further investigation.

The complaint

1. Mr X complains about a penalty notice issued by the Council because his child was absent from school. He said the Council did not carry out any checks before issuing the notice and it did not treat his case proportionally.
2. Mr X complained the Council refused to progress his complaint through its complaints process. He said the Council wrongly classified his complaint as an appeal.

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The Ombudsman’s role and powers

3. The Local Government Act 1974 sets out our powers but also imposes restrictions on what we can investigate.
4. 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 here is not enough evidence of fault to justify investigating (Local Government Act 1974, section 24A(6), as amended, section 34(B))

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How I considered this complaint

5. I considered information provided by Mr X and the Council.
6. I considered the Ombudsman’s Assessment Code.

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My assessment

7. The Council issued a penalty notice to Mr X after his child was absent from school for one week for a holiday.
8. We have not found enough evidence of fault with the Council’s decision to issue the penalty notice and its refusal to withdraw it following a complaint from Mr X. This is because the Council issued the penalty notice in line with its own Conduct of Code and the relevant national guidance, which both say that it is appropriate to issue a penalty notice for an unauthorised term time holiday.
9. Mr X then wrote to the Council to dispute the penalty notice. The Council considered his case and applied the relevant national guidance and its Code of Conduct. The national guidance and the Code of Conduct state term time holidays must be requested in advance but are otherwise not allowed unless there are exceptional circumstances.
10. Mr X did not request a term time holiday in advance and therefore his child’s absence was unauthorised. He also did not give any exceptional reasons for the absence which the Council could have considered.
11. We have not found enough evidence of fault with the Council’s refusal to progress Mr X’s complaint through its corporate complaints procedure. This is because the corporate complaints procedure says that a complaint about a matter that has a separate statutory or legal process should not be considered under the corporate complaints procedure.
12. We have also not seen enough evidence of fault with the way the Council classified his complaint. In his complaint, Mr X asked the Council to withdraw the penalty notice. The Council responded and advised him the complaints process cannot be used as an appeal against the penalty notice.
13. It also advised him that if he disputed the penalty notice, he had the choice to wait for 28 days for the Council to decide to prosecute him for his child’s absence. If the Council did decide to prosecute him, Mr X would have had the opportunity to make representations in court.
14. However, we note Mr X paid the penalty notice before the Council had made its decision.

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Final decision

15. We will not investigate Mr X’s complaint because we have not found enough evidence of fault to warrant a further investigation.

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Investigator's decision on behalf of the Ombudsman