Summary: We will not investigate Mrs X’s complaint about the Council’s decision to refuse her application for free home to school transport for her son. This is because there is no sign of fault by the Council.

The complaint

1. Mrs X complains about the Council’s decision to refuse her application for free home to school transport for her son because he is not attending his catchment or nearest suitable school. Mrs X says as far as she knew she had applied for the closest school, but the Council says she did not. Mrs X says she cannot afford the travel costs to her son’s school which is 8 miles away.

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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 effect 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 an investigation if we decide the tests set out in our Assessment Code are not met. (Local Government Act 1974, section 24A(6), as amended)
3. We do not start or continue an investigation if we decide there is not enough evidence of fault to justify investigating. (Local Government Act 1974, section 24A(6), as amended, section 34(B))
4. We investigate complaints of injustice caused by ‘maladministration’ and ‘service failure’. I have used the word fault to refer to these. We consider whether there was fault in the way an organisation made its decision. If there was no fault in how the organisation made its decision, we cannot question the outcome. (Local Government Act 1974, section 34(3), as amended)

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How I considered this complaint

5. I considered information provided by the complainant and the Council and the Council’s school transport policy which is published on its website.
6. I considered the Ombudsman’s Assessment Code.

My assessment

7. Mrs X applied for free home to school transport for her son. The Council refused the application on the basis he is not attending his catchment or closest available school to his home address.
8. The Council’s school transport policy states pupils of secondary school age are entitled to free transport to their nearest suitable school if it is 3 miles or more from home. It says parents have the right to express a preference for a school other than the nearest suitable or catchment school. This is known as a ‘preferred school’. The policy does not make any additional free travel provision for pupils to attend preferred schools. Distances for provision of free transport are measured from the home address to school, gate to gate, using the shortest available walking route. All distance measurements are undertaken using the Council’s approved specialist mapping tool.
9. Mrs X appealed the decision via the Council’s stage two review panel. Mrs X said she had applied for the nearest suitable school ‘as the crow flies’ but no space had been available. Her son was awarded a place at their second choice school, which is 8 miles away.
10. The panel considered the information Mrs X provided and her reasons for choosing the schools she did, but it upheld the original decision to refuse the application because her son is not attending the nearest suitable school. It found Mrs X did not apply for a space at the nearest suitable school to the home address. It found no exceptional grounds to agree the application outside of the policy in this case. It explained that applications for travel assistance measures distances using its mapping tool based on the walking distance from the home address to the school. Distances are not measured ‘as the crow flies’.
11. We will not investigate Mrs X’s complaint. This is because, whilst I acknowledge Mrs X disagrees with the Council’s decision, there is no sign of fault by the Council here. It has considered and decided Mrs X’s application and appeal in line with its published school transport policy. The decision to refuse the application is one it is entitled to make. We are not an appeal body. This means we do not take a second look at a decision to decide if it was wrong. Instead, we look at the processes an organisation followed in making its decision. If we consider, as here, that it followed those processes correctly, we cannot question whether the decision was right or wrong, regardless of whether the complainant disagrees with it.

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Final decision

12. We will not investigate Mrs X’s complaint because there is insufficient evidence of fault by the Council to warrant an investigation.

Investigator’s decision on behalf of the Ombudsman

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Investigator's decision on behalf of the Ombudsman