Summary: The Ombudsman will not investigate Mrs X’s complaint about the Council’s decision not to provide her son with free transport to school. This is because there is not enough evidence of fault by the Council.

The complaint

1. Mrs X complained about the decision not to provide her son with free transport to school.

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The Ombudsman’s role and powers

2. 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 it is unlikely we would find fault. (Local Government Act 1974, section 24A(6), as amended)
3. We cannot question whether a council’s decision is right or wrong simply because the complainant disagrees with it. We must consider whether there was fault in the way the decision was reached. (Local Government Act 1974, section 34(3), as amended)

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How I considered this complaint

4. I considered information provided by Mrs X and the Council.
5. I considered the Ombudsman’s Assessment Code.
6. I gave the complainant the opportunity to comment on a draft decision and considered any comments received.

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My assessment

What happened

7. Mrs X asked the Council to provide her son (Y) with free transport to school. The Council refused Mrs X’s application because it said Y was attending a ‘preferred school’. Under the Council’s policy a preferred school is not the catchment school or the closest school to home with spaces.
8. Councils must apply their transport policy when deciding entitlement to transport assistance. But they also have the discretion to consider exceptional circumstances. They must have a review or appeal process by which to do so.
9. Mrs X appealed the Council’s decision. Mrs X said Y was intelligent and the Council should provide transport to the selective school he attends.
10. The Council refused Mrs X’s appeal. It said transport is only available to the “nearest qualifying (catchment area) school if it is 3 miles or more from home. Free transport to a preferred school is only available if that school is 3 miles or more from home and closer than the catchment area school.”
11. The Council said the closest school to Mrs X’s home was 0.9 miles away. The school Y attends is 14.9 miles away. The Council said parents can choose which school to send their child to, but this includes “making the appropriate travel arrangements as and when required.”
12. Mrs X asked the Council to escalate her appeal. In support of her appeal, she referred to health problems which affected Y. Mrs X explained why he could not catch a bus and the impact it would have on him if he had to change schools.
13. The Council invited Mrs X to attend a virtual hearing for her stage 2 appeal. Mrs X was unable to attend. The Council considered Mrs X’s appeal and the information she had provided. The panel refused Mrs X’s appeal.
14. In its decision letter the panel said the Council’s policy had been properly applied. This requires a child to attend the closest or catchment school. For a secondary school aged child, the distance from home to school needs to be over three miles. Y did not attend the closest school or the catchment school. The panel noted the Council’s policy did not contain any provision for children attending a selective school which was not the closest or catchment school. There were other schools closer to home and there was no evidence these would not be able to meet Y’s needs.

Assessment

15. Mrs X disagrees with the panel’s decision. But this is not evidence of fault. The Ombudsman is not an appeal body, and we cannot criticise a properly made decision or intervene to substitute an alternative view. As I explain in paragraph 3, we can only criticise a council’s decision if there was fault in the way it was reached.
16. Statutory guidance on home to school transport makes it clear that children are eligible for free transport if they attend the nearest suitable school to home. For secondary aged children, like Y, the distance from home to school needs to be more than three miles.
17. Under the Council’s policy the nearest suitable school is the school which is physically closest to the home address. It can also be a school where the home address falls within the catchment area – but the Council needs to recognise the catchment area. The Council’s policy does not contain any extra provisions for children attending a selective school which is not the closest or catchment school.
18. Based on the evidence available the Council was correct in its original refusal of Mrs X’s application. Y does not attend the catchment or nearest school. I do think though that the Council’s policy could be clearer. It uses the terms “nearest qualifying” and “nearest suitable” interchangeably. It also refers to “preferred school” and there are occasions when a child will be eligible for transport to such a school. I note the Council did not quote its policy verbatim when responding to Mrs X’s appeals. In my view this supports the idea the Council’s policy could be worded more clearly.
19. But this does not mean the Council was wrong to refuse Mrs X’s application. When Mrs X appealed the Council considered what she said but decided there was no automatic entitlement to free transport. The Council decided there were no exceptional reasons to provide free transport. It explained its decision to Mrs X.
20. As I explain above, my view is that if the Council’s policy was worded more clearly it would be easier for parents and third parties to understand its decisions. However, this does not mean the decision-making process or the decisions themselves were flawed. Without evidence of this we cannot question the Council’s decisions and so we will not investigate.

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Final decision

21. We will not investigate Mrs X’s complaint. This is because there is not enough evidence of fault by the Council.

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Investigator's decision on behalf of the Ombudsman