Summary: We will not investigate this complaint about the Council’s decision to refuse the complainant’s application for school transport assistance because there is no evidence of fault on the Council’s part.

The complaint

1. The complainant, who I will refer to as Mrs B, complains that the Council is at fault in refusing her application and appeal for school transport assistance for her daughter.

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The Ombudsman’s role and powers

2. The Ombudsman investigates 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 may decide not to continue with an investigation if we decide there is not enough evidence of fault to justify investigating. (Local Government Act 1974, section 24A(6))

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How I considered this complaint

3. I considered information provided by the complainant and the Council.
4. I considered the Ombudsman’s Assessment Code.

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My assessment

5. Mrs B successfully applied for a secondary school place for her daughter for September 2021. Her daughter has a medical condition, and she says the choice of school was informed by discussion with her daughter’s medical team.
6. Having obtained the place, Mrs B applied for school transport. The Council applied its school transport policy and, as the school was neither the catchment school nor the closest to the home address, refused the application.
7. Mrs B challenged the Council’s decision and has now completed its appeal process, the final stage of which is an appeal hearing before a panel of Council officers. Her appeal was unsuccessful. Mrs B believes the panel failed to properly consider her daughter’s circumstances. She wants the matter reconsidered.
8. We will not investigate this complaint because there is no evidence of fault on the Council’s part. The Ombudsman will not investigate a council’s decision simply because someone disagrees with it. We must consider whether there is fault in the way the decision was made.
9. The evidence shows the Council properly applied its school transport policy in refusing Mrs B’s application. Having done so, it offered her the right to appeal. At the Stage 2 appeal stage, the role of the appeal panel was to consider whether the circumstances of the case were so exceptional as to justify awarding transport. The question for the Ombudsman is whether there was fault in the way it did so.
10. The evidence shows that Mrs B had the opportunity to provide evidence to the panel in writing and attended the hearing to make her case in person. It was then for the panel to decide what weight to give to the evidence before it. There is no evidence of fault in the way it did so. Without evidence of fault, it is not for the Ombudsman to criticise the decision the panel made, or intervene to substitute an alternative view. There are therefore no grounds for us to investigate Mrs B’s complaint.

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Final decision

11. We will not investigate Mrs B’s complaint because there is no evidence of fault on the Council’s part.

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Investigator's decision on behalf of the Ombudsman