Summary: The Ombudsman cannot investigate Ms X’s complaint that a school failed to provide her child with education. We should not investigate her complaint the Council delayed in allocating a school place as the delay is not the cause of any significant injustice.

The complaint

1. The complainant, whom I shall call Ms X, says the Council delayed in providing her child, Z, with a school place, which meant that Z missed out on education from January 2020 until September 2020.

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The Ombudsman’s role and powers

2. We cannot investigate complaints about what happens in schools. (Local Government Act 1974, Schedule 5, paragraph 5(b), as amended)
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’. We provide a free service, but must use public money carefully. We may decide not to start or continue with an investigation if we believe:
• the fault has not caused injustice to the person who complained, or
• the injustice is not significant enough to justify the cost of our involvement (Local Government Act 1974, section 24A(6), as amended)

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How I considered this complaint

4. I considered the information Ms X provided with her complaint and the Council’s responses to her which it provided. I considered Ms X’s comments on a draft version of this decision.

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What I found

5. Ms X moved home in December 2019. She says in January 2020 she applied to this Council for a school place for her child, Z, in primary school. The Council informed her in late February 2020 that there was a place for Z at School Y.
6. Ms X says School Y did not arrange for Z to attend School Y before it shut down in March 2020 due to the Covid rules. She says Z has missed out on schooling from January 2020 because of the Council’s delays and that it should have ensured School Y provided education to Z.
7. The Council’s policy is to provide a school place to a child who is moving schools within 20 school days of application. If Ms X applied at the start of the school term in January 2020, then it is possible it took six weeks to offer a place. A two week delay is not significant enough injustice to justify an investigation.
8. We have no power to investigate why School Y did not arrange the place to start before School Y shut. We also have no power to investigate School Y’s failure to provide Z with an education between March and July 2020.

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Final decision

9. The Ombudsman will not and cannot investigate this complaint. This is because we cannot investigate the School’s failure to provide the school place or education and a two weeks delay in allocation the school place is not significant enough injustice to justify an investigation.

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Investigator's decision on behalf of the Ombudsman