Summary: Ms X complained about the way the Council dealt with her children’s Education, Health and Care Plans. The Ombudsman finds no fault by the Council or significant injustice to Ms X.

The complaint

1. Ms X complained about the way the Council dealt with the Education, Health and Care Plans (EHC Plans) for two of her children, B and C. She said:
1. the Council refused to agree to her request for her children’s case officer to be changed;
2. she was not invited to the panel meeting where it was decided the Council should assess B’s education and health care needs;
3. C’s EHC Plan has not been reviewed properly for the last two years so has been out of date and insufficient for his transition to secondary school and his first two years at secondary school.
2. Ms X is concerned her children have not received the support they should have.

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What I have investigated

3. I have investigated the complaints at a) and b). The final section of this statement contains my reasons for not investigating the complaint at c).

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The Ombudsman’s role and powers

4. We investigate complaints about ‘maladministration’ and ‘service failure’. In this statement, I have used the word fault to refer to these. We must also consider whether any fault has had an adverse impact on the person making the complaint. I refer to this as ‘injustice’. If there has been fault which has caused an injustice, we may suggest a remedy. (Local Government Act 1974, sections 26(1) and 26A(1), as amended)
5. If we are satisfied with a council’s actions or proposed actions, we can complete our investigation and issue a decision statement. (Local Government Act 1974, section 30(1B) and 34H(i), as amended)

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How I considered this complaint

6. I have considered information from:
• Ms X’s complaint and from a telephone conversation with her; and
• the Council’s complaints procedure.
7. I gave Ms X and the Council an opportunity to comment on a draft of this decision.

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What I found

Complaint a) Refusal to change the children’s case officer

8. It is for the Council to decide which officer should work with Ms X’s children. During the complaints procedure the Council considered Ms X’s concerns and explained to her why it did not consider it would be helpful or appropriate to change the case officer. The Council is not at fault in the way it reached this view.

Complaint b) Panel meeting attendance

9. Ms X asked to attend the multi-agency panel that was to decide whether the Council should carry out an assessment of B’s educational, health and care needs. During the complaints procedure the Council explained to Ms X the number of panel sessions parents can attend is limited. The Council allocates places to parents on a first come first served basis. It did not receive a request early enough from Ms X to allow her to attend the session discussing B’s needs.
10. The panel Ms X wanted to attend decided B’s education and health care needs should be assessed. The assessment has now been carried out and, as a result, B now has an EHC Plan which Ms X is happy with. So there was no significant injustice to Ms X as a result of not attending the meeting.

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Final decision

11. I have completed my investigation because I have found no fault by the Council or significant injustice to Ms X.

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Parts of the complaint that I did not investigate

Complaint c) Review of C’s EHC Plan

12. The law says that, before investigating a complaint, we must normally be satisfied the Council knows about the complaint and has had an opportunity to investigate and to reply to it. We would normally expect someone to have exhausted the Council’s complaints procedure before we will investigate their complaint.
13. Ms X’s complaint at c) has not been through the Council’s complaints procedure. I therefore sent her complaint to the Council with the draft of this decision and asked the Council to put it through the complaints procedure.

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Investigator's decision on behalf of the Ombudsman