Summary: Miss P complained the Council failed to issue an Education, Health and Care Plan for her daughter, Q, in a timely way. She said the school Q attended at the time did not want to offer sufficient support. Miss P also complained that the Council delayed in identifying the school Q now attends. The investigation has been discontinued because Miss P could have complained about the actions of the Council earlier and because her complaint about the school is outside of the Ombudsman’s jurisdiction.

The complaint

1. Miss P complained to us about the Council’s delay in providing an Education, Health and Care Plan (EHCP) for her daughter, Q. She said the school that Q attended. before she received the finalised EHCP, did not want to offer the support it knew Q would need.
2. Miss P had made an earlier complaint to us about the time it took for the Council to issue an EHCP for Q. She also said the Council was delaying giving Q a place at the school she now attends. The Council investigated this complaint.

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The Ombudsman’s role and powers

3. We cannot investigate late complaints unless we decide there are good reasons. Late complaints are when someone takes more than 12 months to complain to us about something a council has done. (Local Government Act 1974, sections 26B and 34D, as amended)
4. We cannot investigate complaints about what happens in schools. (Local Government Act 1974, Schedule 5, paragraph 5(b), as amended)
5. We investigate complaints of injustice caused by ‘maladministration’ and ‘service failure’. I have used the word ‘fault’ to refer to these. We cannot question whether a council’s decision is right or wrong simply because the complainant disagrees with it. We must consider whether there was fault in the way the decision was reached. (Local Government Act 1974, section 34(3), as amended)
6. We can decide whether to start or discontinue an investigation into a complaint within our jurisdiction. (Local Government Act 1974, sections 24A(6) and 34B(8), as amended)

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How I considered this complaint

7. I considered the information Miss P provided me with her complaint (and her previous complaint) and I spoke to her on the telephone. I sent Miss P and the Council a copy of my draft decision and took comments made into account before issuing a decision.

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What I found

Background

8. Miss P came to us on 13 June 2019 setting out concerns with the time it took for the Council to issue an Education, Health and Care Plan (EHCP) for her daughter, Q and saying the Council had delayed Q starting at her new school. The Council considered these complaints on 25 July. The letter the Council sent to Miss P, after answering her complaint at Stage One of its procedure says at the end “If we have not received a request for a review within one month we will close the complaint”. We responded to the Council on 31 July emphasizing that, “If Miss P requests a review of the Stage One response then please start your investigation of the complaint at the second stage”. We wrote to Miss P to give her that information at the same time.
9. Miss P returned to us on 20 January 2020 complaining about the Council’s delay in issuing an EHCP, which had caused problems at the mainstream school Q previously attended. She says the school did not offer Q the correct support even though it knew what the EHCP would be asking it to provide. This pre-dated the original complaint to us because Miss P’s first complaint in June 2019 acknowledged Q now had an EHCP and was about to attend a different school.
10. The Council refused to consider her complaint of 20 January because Miss P could have complained about these matters before. Q no longer attended the school she was complaining about and Miss P had not asked the Council to consider her June complaint at Stage Two.

What I found

11. Miss P says she expected someone to call her, after she came to us in June 2019, to check that she had complained about everything she wanted to complain about. As we are not an advocacy service we would not do this.
12. Our letter to Miss P of 31 July 2019 says; “If you are dissatisfied with (the Council’s) response, (we) would recommend that you…ask that the Council review the decision”. We explained that, because the Council could take this to a second stage, we were “temporarily clos(ing)” the complaint. At the time, the Council had not had the opportunity to fully consider it. The Council would have considered the complaint further had Miss P asked it to do so.
13. I spoke to Miss P to decide if we should exercise discretion to look at her complaints now. Miss P accepted she could have raised the complaints she made to us in January 2020 in June 2019. She told me had been dealing with other things at the time of our 31 July letter such as home-schooling Q and trying to address her stress that had been brought on by a lack of support. I accept this but it still took Miss P over six months to come back to us. I understand Miss P finds it very difficult to deal with the Council; she told me she ‘can’t ask them for anything’ as she feels it is too stressful. But we cannot raise complaints on her behalf.
14. Because Miss P had opportunities to address the complaints she made to us in January 2020 before now, I am not exercising discretion to consider them.
15. In addition, I cannot consider the part of her January complaint about the actions of the school and, specifically, the headteacher. This is because the internal management of schools is not in the Ombudsman’s jurisdiction.

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Final decision

16. I have discontinued my investigation and closed this complaint.

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Investigator's decision on behalf of the Ombudsman