Summary: We will not investigate Miss X’s complaint about how the Council handled her application for post-16 transport for her son. This is because there is not enough evidence of fault by the Council. Even if we did investigate, it is unlikely that we could add anything to the investigation the Council has already carried.

The complaint

1. The complainant, Miss X, complained about the Council’s handling of her application for post-16 transport for her son (Y) who has Special Educational Needs (SEN). Miss X says a problem with the Council’s website meant she could not complete her application before the deadline. Miss X says she reported the problem, but the Council did not respond. Because the Council treated her application as late, Miss X had to transport Y to college for half a term. During this period the Council paid Miss X a travel allowance.

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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 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.

(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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My assessment

5. Miss X applied for Y’s post-16 transport on Friday 25 July 2025. The deadline for applications was Sunday 27 July. Miss X says she did not apply earlier because she needed to wait for Y’s college to pay his bursary. Miss X says the Council’s website would not accept her application and she called the Council about this. Miss X says the Council said her difficulties would be noted. Miss X continued to try to apply and emailed the Council on 26 and 27 July. Her payment eventually processed on 28 July. Miss X then received an email saying she had missed the deadline and taxi transport would not be available until October.
6. In response to Miss X’s complaint, the Council said Friday 25 October was the final working day before the deadline. Because of the volume of work, the Council had not been able to provide further help. It had checked and no faults were found which would have prevented Miss X’s payment. It could find no evidence the late application was due to an issue with the Council’s system. The Council had said it had dealt with Miss X’s late application in line with its published policy.
7. While I do sympathise with Miss X’s situation, we will not start an investigation into her complaint. In deciding whether to investigate we need to consider various tests. These include whether an investigation would be likely to find fault with the Council’s actions. We also cannot question decisions taken by a council unless there was fault in the way they were reached.
8. In this case, the Council has a deadline for applications. Miss X did not apply until after the deadline. We could not therefore say the Council was at fault for treating the application as late.
9. The situation is obviously more complicated due to Miss X’s claim she tried to apply but could not. This clearly happened, which is why Miss X called and emailed the Council. We would expect the Council to consider this when deciding how to treat Miss X’s application. The Council has investigated and said there were no issues with its system which would have prevented the application from succeeding. I have seen no evidence which suggests the Council’s position on this point is wrong. We could not therefore say that fault by the Council stopped Miss X from applying. Even if we did investigate, it is unlikely that we could ever say why the application failed, and so we could not add anything to the Council’s response or achieve a different outcome.
10. I note Miss X says the Council did not respond to her query before the deadline. But it is unlikely that if we investigated, we would say the Council was at fault to have not done this. I have not seen anything which shows it said it would. And as noted above, there is not enough evidence that fault by the Council prevented the application in the first place. Why that happened is not something we could ever establish.
11. Based on the evidence available there is not enough evidence of fault by the Council to warrant us investigating.

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Final decision

12. We will not investigate Miss X’s complaint. There is not enough evidence of fault by the Council, and an investigation would be unlikely to add anything to the Council’s response.

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Investigator's decision on behalf of the Ombudsman