Summary: We will not investigate Miss X’s complaint about the Council’s refusal to grant home to school transport. It is reasonable to expect her to have appealed an Education Health and Care Plan wording to the Tribunal. And we are unlikely to find fault in the Council’s decision to refuse home to school transport.

The complaint

1. Miss X says the Council should provided home to school transport for B.

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The Ombudsman’s role and powers

2. The law says we cannot normally investigate a complaint when someone has a right of appeal, reference or review to a tribunal about the same matter. However, we may decide to investigate if we consider it would be unreasonable to expect the person to use this right. (Local Government Act 1974, section 26(6)(a), as amended).
3. 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. (Local Government Act 1974, section 24A(6), as amended, section 34(B))

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How I considered this complaint

4. I considered information provided by Miss X and the Council.
5. I considered the Ombudsman’s Assessment Code.

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My assessment

6. B has special educational needs (SEN) and an Education Health and Care Plan (EHC Plan). B’s EHC Plan named School Y. It said in the EHC Plan School Y had been named as ‘parental choice’ and it was for the parents to arrange and pay for home to school transport. If they could not, then another school, School Z, could meet B’s needs.
7. Miss X says B cannot use public transport. The family moved house and B had to live for some of the week with extended family members so that B could attend School Y. She says this was adversely affecting B and applied to the Council for home to school transport. It refused. She asked the Council’s internal review process to consider the case. It refused her appeal.
8. Miss X says she was not warned that B needed to be at their nearest suitable school to qualify for free transport. However, B’s EHC Plan clearly states this, and Miss X had a right of appeal to the Tribunal to appeal that wording. It is reasonable to expect her to use that right if she disagreed with it.
9. The Council decided B was not entitled to home to school transport as School Y is not their nearest suitable school. The appeal decision said they considered Miss X’s reasons for wanting the Council to use its discretion but decided there were not strong enough reasons to do so.
10. The Ombudsman is 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 to make its decision. If we consider it followed those processes correctly, we cannot question whether the decision was right or wrong, regardless of whether Miss X disagrees with the decision the organisation made.
11. I have considered the steps the organisation took to consider the issue, and the information it took account of when deciding to refuse home to school transport. It is unlikely we would find fault.

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Final decision

We will not investigate Miss X’s complaint because it is reasonable to expect her to appeal the EHC Plan wording and it is unlikely we would find fault.

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Investigator's decision on behalf of the Ombudsman