Summary: We will not investigate this complaint about post-16 transport. The Council changed its original decision and agreed to provide specialist transport. This is the outcome Mrs X wanted. An investigation would not achieve anything more and the personal injustice caused is not significant enough to warrant an investigation.

The complaint

1. The complainant, Mrs X, complained about the Council’s original decision not to provide her son with post-16 transport to school. While the Council has now changed its decision, Mrs X is unhappy with the Council’s decision-making and the time it took to put appropriate arrangements in place.

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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:

• 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))

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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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What I found

Background

5. Mrs X’s son (Y) previously received post 16 transport to school. Y has special education needs and an Education, Health and Care Plan (EHC Plan).
6. Mrs X applied for transport for the 2024/25 academic year. The Council responded and said it would pay a Personal Transport Budget (PTB) to Y’s school. Mrs X assumed this meant the school would provide transport.
7. Mrs X then discovered the Council had offered a PTB instead of transport. The expectation was Mrs X would need to arrange Y’s transport. This decision followed a change in the Council’s transport policy. Mrs X has complained separately about the wording of the Council’s letter and so we will not consider that issue again. The Council did, however, accept there were issues with the wording of its letter and that it was not clear.
8. Mrs X appealed the Council’s decision. It upheld the offer a PTB. After Mrs X’s solicitor issued the Council with a Pre-Action Protocol Letter the Council agreed to provide specialist transport. It said this was due to a physiotherapy report which was not originally available.
9. Mrs X has questioned the original decision not to provide transport as well as how the Council considered her stage 1 appeal. Mrs X says the stage 1 panel only consisted of a single person. Mrs X says the Council referred to polices which do not exist. Mrs X questions if the Council changed its decision due to the extra report or the threat of legal action.
10. Mrs X is also unhappy because after the Council agreed to provide transport it changed the transport operator. Mrs X had asked the Council not to do this. Mrs X says the Council also sent two unsuitable vehicles to meet and greet sessions before it finally arranged suitable transport.

Assessment

11. We will not start an investigation into Mrs X’s complaint. The reasons for this are below.
12. The original issue which led to Mrs X’s complaint was the Council’s decision to provide a PTB rather than specialist transport. Councils are required to have a policy for parents to challenge decisions about transport. We expect parents to use this process if they are unhappy with the arrangements offered.
13. In this case, Mrs X appealed unsuccessfully at the first stage of the Council’s process. The Council then changed its decision once Mrs X’s solicitor wrote to the Council. We will not look at the original decision, the stage 1 appeal, or the revised decision. This is because the Council’s agreement to provide transport is the outcome Mrs X wanted. We could not achieve anything more. It would not be a good use of our resources to look at the Council’s decision-making, given the Council changed its original decision.
14. Mrs X is also unhappy with the transport the Council then offered. It was only after she contacted the Council several times that it provided the transport she wanted. While I understand Mrs X’s frustrations, we will not investigate these issues. Again, we could not now achieve anything more. Also, while recognising the frustration caused, it is not significant enough to justify us investigating.
15. Mrs X has also raised concerns about how the Council dealt with her complaints. Mrs X says the Council wrongly merged several complaints. I agree, the Council’s responses could be clearer. But it is not a good use of our resources to look at complaint handling as a standalone issue if we are not going to investigate the issues which led to the original complaint. That is the case here and so we will not investigate.

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Final decision

16. We will not investigate Mrs X’s complaint because we could not achieve anything more and the injustice is not significant enough to warrant us investigating.

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Investigator's decision on behalf of the Ombudsman