Summary: Mr and Mrs X complain the Council failed to consistently provide the school transport their son was legally entitled to from September 2016 until November 2017. The Ombudsman finds there was fault by the Council when it failed to organise an escort to accompany Mr and Mrs X’s son to school, instead leaving Mrs X no choice but to accompany him instead. The Council agreed with our recommendation it should apologise, pay a suitable financial remedy to Mr and Mrs X and take steps to ensure it makes learning from this case available to relevant staff members.

The complaint

1. Mr and Mrs X complain the Council failed to consistently provide the school transport their son was legally entitled to from September 2016 until November 2017. The failure meant Mrs X had to escort their son herself while paying for essential childcare for their other child that would otherwise have been unncessary.
2. Mr and Mrs X say the uncertainty meant they felt unable to cancel the childcare even after the Council put in place appropriate transport for their son. They also point to the distress caused and time and trouble they were put to in having to make alternative arrangements and liaise regularly with the Council.

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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. We cannot investigate a complaint if it is about a personnel issue. (Local Government Act 1974, Schedule 5/5a, paragraph 4, as amended)
5. If we are satisfied with a council’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)

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How I considered this complaint

6. I spoke with Mrs X to discuss the complaint. I considered the information she told me and sent the Ombudsman. I wrote to the Council to make enquiries and then reviewed the material it sent in response.
7. In this statement, I will refer to Mr and Mrs X’s son as ‘Y’.
8. I shared my draft decision with Mr and Mrs X, and the Council, and I invited both parties to comment on it. I considered their comments before making my final decision.
9. Under the information sharing agreement between the Local Government and Social Care Ombudsman and the Office for Standards in Education, Children’s Services and Skills (Ofsted), we will share this decision with Ofsted.

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What I found

10. The law says local authorities must make suitable travel arrangements, ‘as they consider necessary’, for eligible children to attend their qualifying school. This transport must be provided free of charge.
11. Mr and Mrs X’s son, Y, has a disability which means he requires adult supervision during his journey to school in case of a medical emergency. The Council agreed to provide him with transport to school in October 2016. However, it was unable to find one of its own escorts to travel with Y in his taxi to school. As a result, from November 2016 Mrs X had to accompany Y instead.
12. In March 2017, the Council assigned one of its own escorts to Y’s route. However, after a fortnight it says it had reassign that escort to, “another run which had children with more complex needs.” It was unable to find another full-time escort although it had been its intent to replace them. Mrs X says an officer called her at 3pm on a Friday to say they would leave it with her to decide what to do for the following morning. Inevitably, to keep Y going to school, Mrs X reluctantly stepped in to accompany him.
13. The Council says it paid a ‘mileage’ rate to Mrs X for her time and provided her with some basic training. Mrs X says at one point she was asked to fill out an application form to work as a Council-employed escort and believes she was interviewed for the role. Both parties agree Mrs X was never formally employed by the Council.
14. Mrs X says she then found out in September 2017, only a few days before the new school year started, the Council had decided Y was going to be sharing transport once the term started.
15. The Council says one of its transport planners identified another child travelling alone in a taxi and so intended to combine the routes. It says it would have taken the decision earlier in the year and then notified Mrs X by letter. However, it has been unable to produce a copy of the letter for the Ombudsman, and Mrs X is adamant she was unaware.
16. Mrs X complained about the Council’s decision and it reversed it within a week, reinstating Y’s previous arrangement. However, as a result, Mrs X was still required to accompany him as there were still no Council-employed staff available to do it. It decided instead to invite taxi operators to tender for Y’s school transport contract, with the operator to provide their own trained escort instead. The Council says this was the first time it had taken that approach.
17. Mr and Mrs X’s younger daughter had started at a different school in September 2016. Mrs X says that, to make sure she had enough time to accompany Y and get her daughter to school on time, she had to put her daughter into her school’s breakfast club at her own cost.
18. The Council appointed the new operator for Y’s route at the end of October 2017. The proposed escort then completed the Council’s training in the first week of November and started work from 27 November, once criminal records checks were complete.
19. Although Mrs X no longer had to accompany Y to school, she carried on paying for her daughter to attend her school’s breakfast club for the rest of the school year. She says there were many occasions where the taxi had not turned up and, given the changes to the transport arrangements in the previous year, she had little confidence in it continuing to work well. Mrs X also says there was waiting list for the breakfast club so, if she had withdrawn her daughter only for the Council to let her down again, she may not have been able to step in at short notice to accompany Y.
20. Mr and Mrs X complained to the Council. They asked for Mrs X to be paid what an employed escort would have received, as well for their daughter’s breakfast club fees to be refunded. In its response, the Council accepted that without their daughter attending the breakfast club, the arrangement for Mrs X to act as Y’s escort would never have worked.
21. The Council offered to pay Mr and Mrs X £1010 to reimburse the cost of the breakfast club on days Mrs X had accompanied Y between September 2016 and November 2017. It was not however prepared to cover the cost of the breakfast club after the new operator was appointed, nor to pay Mrs X the same as an employed escort. It did offer an extra £100 because Y’s travel arrangements, “did not run as smoothly as we would always intend”.

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Analysis

22. It is a positive to see in this case the Council has accepted a degree of fault, recognised some of the financial impact on Mr and Mrs X and has proposed a remedy. However, as Mr and Mrs X continue to dispute the outcome, I am justified in considering all the evidence available to me before reaching any conclusions on fault.
23. In this case, the law is clear about the legal responsibility of the Council to ensure Y had transport to school. In his case, it accepted throughout almost the whole time in question that Y needed an escort for the arrangement to qualify as ‘suitable’. Yet, because of a lack of staff available, and excluding a fortnight in March 2017, it failed to provide one for almost a year between November 2016 and November 2017. The arrangement clearly only worked at all because of Mrs X. This is fault.
24. The decision to change Y’s travel arrangement in September 2017, only to then almost immediately reverse the decision when challenged, contributes to the fault. The Council deserves credit for trying a new approach to solve the impasse in Y’s case but it seems to me that decision might have been taken sooner if Mrs X had been aware of the proposed change and been able to challenge it successfully sooner.
25. I considered the Council’s case it informed Mrs X earlier in year of its intention to change the arrangement from September but, in the absence of a copy of the letter, I find Mrs X’s account to be creditable.
26. A clear injustice was caused to Mrs X in this case. She had to commit her own time to accompanying her son to school when this was the Council’s responsibility. That said, I have concluded it is outside the Ombudsman’s jurisdiction to decide whether Mrs X was employed by the Council.
27. An injustice was also caused to Mr and Mrs X and their daughter because of the costs of the breakfast club placement. Mrs X has also explained the impact it had on her daughter, who in her first year of school was having to be dropped off early rather than in the playground with her mother like the other children. This in turn caused some distress and feelings of guilt for Mrs X which should be recognised too.
28. Having considered the evidence I have concluded the remedy offered by the Council fell short of what the Ombudsman would expect. I have proposed revised remedies below.

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Agreed action

29. By 14 July 2019, the Council has agreed to write to Mr and Mrs X and apologise formally for the fault identified in this case. The letter should recognise the impact of its failings on Mrs X personally and both of them financially, as well as the indirect impact on their daughter.
30. By 14 July 2019, the Council has agreed to pay Mr and Mrs X the sum of £2,535. This is made up of:
• £1010 already offered by the Council to cover the breakfast club fees between September 2016 and November 2017.
• £225 to cover the cost of additional sessions of the breakfast club incurred until February half term. I think this was a sufficient enough period for Mr and Mrs Y to be able to satisfy themselves the new arrangement had bedded in.
• £1200 for Mrs X for around twelve months spent accompanying Y on his journey to school, at £100 per month.
• £100 already offered by the Council in recognition of the disrupted travel arrangements.
31. By 14 September 2019, the Council has agreed to write to the Ombudsman to explain how it intends to ensure learning from this case is shared with managers and staff dealing with school transport, by incorporating it into existing training or a standalone case study exercise.

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Final decision

32. There was fault when the Council failed to organise an escort to accompany Y during his transport to school. This caused an injustice to Mrs X.

Investigator’s final decision on behalf of the Ombudsman

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Investigator's decision on behalf of the Ombudsman