Summary: We will not investigate this complaint about a school transport incident in dropping off Mrs X’s child at her home address, and in suspending her child’s school transport. While the incident was fault, there was fortunately no harm to the child. The Council was also entitled to suspend the child’s school transport at short notice due to the nature of the reported incidents. Investigation is therefore unlikely to lead to a different or better outcome than that resulting from the Council’s own investigation.

The complaint

1. Mrs X complained about two matters:

• Her child being dropped at home by school transport when she had made it clear there would be no-one at home to receive the child; and
• Her child’s school transport being suspended without adequate notice or any consideration of other courses of action.

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The Ombudsman’s role and powers

2. 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:

• there is not enough evidence of fault to justify investigating, or
• any fault has not caused injustice to the person who complained, or
• any injustice is not significant enough to justify our involvement, or
• we could not add to any previous investigation by the organisation, or
• further investigation would not lead to a different outcome, or
• there is no worthwhile outcome achievable by our investigation.

(Local Government Act 1974, section 24A(6), as amended, section 34(B))
 

3. Under our information sharing agreement, we will share this decision with the Office for Standards in Education, Children’s Services and Skills (Ofsted).

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How I considered this complaint

4. I considered information provided by the complainant.
5. I considered the Ombudsman’s Assessment Code.

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My assessment

6. The correspondence provided by Mrs X shows she had wanted the child dropped off at an aunt’s house in another street, which the Council was entitled to refuse. But when the child was dropped off, there was no agreed adult to receive the child, and only an older sibling was at home by chance. Dropping off the child at home contradicted the email the Council had sent to Mrs X three hours earlier where it had stated the child would not be transported home from school unless it had the details of a person who would receive them. And while the Council stated in its complaint response to Mrs X that the transport provider acted of its own volition rather than contacting the SEN department as should have happened, the provider was discharging a Council duty.
7. Despite this fault, fortunately the child was not harmed, so the personal injustice caused by it is not enough to warrant a remedy recommendation by us. And further investigation by us would not add to the Council’s own work in changing practice. This is because the Council already has a policy about how and where children should be dropped off, and the correspondence between Mrs X and the Council, which she provided, showed the Council was in the process of taking action to ensure drivers did not make ad hoc decisions about where to drop children.
8. Turning to the second issue, the suspension of the child’s transport happened on a Friday afternoon with effect for three days from the following Monday. School transport can be suspended at short notice where there is a good reason to do so. The matters reported included actions by the child that might have placed the safety of driver and passengers at risk if repeated while the vehicle was moving, and would have created concern about the same by the driver. While Mrs X feels the Council should have explored other options first, an investigation by us would be unlikely to find fault on that basis. The decision taken is likely to have been within the range open to the Council in the circumstances.

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Final decision

9. We will not investigate Mrs X’s complaint because:

• There is not enough evidence of injustice caused by fault in the matter of the dropping off incident to warrant investigation;
• There is not enough evidence of fault in the matter of suspending the transport to justify our further involvement; and
• Investigation by us would be unlikely to lead to a different or better outcome.

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Investigator's decision on behalf of the Ombudsman