Summary: Miss Q complains about the Council’s delays in finalising an Education and Health Care Plan. And in it not putting any alternative education provision in place after her son stopped attending school. The Ombudsman upholds the complaint. The Council has agreed to our recommendations.

The complaint

1. The complainant, whom I shall describe as Miss Q, complains on behalf of her son (R). She complains:

• the Council took long to assess R’s special educational needs;
• the Education and Health Care (EHC) Plan was late and lacked information about the specific measures R needed;
• the Council delayed carrying out annual reviews;
• the Council did not carry out a review before R’s transfer to secondary education;
• she complained, but the Council’s response ignored substantive issues.

2. Miss Q says:
• this resulted in R missing over a year of school and specialist support. R needed significant support to access education again and his mental health, self-esteem and confidence suffered;
• she was also distressed and upset by the Council’s inaction. She says she “…was literally left at home alone with no support, no recognition, nowhere to turn and no plan going forward”.

Back to top

The Ombudsman’s role and powers

3. 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)
4. 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)
5. When a council has statutory duties, but another organisation carries out those duties on its behalf, it remains responsible for the actions of the organisation providing them. (Local Government Act 1974, section 25(7), as amended)
6. The law says we cannot normally investigate a complaint when someone can appeal to a Tribunal. However, we may decide to investigate if we consider it would be unreasonable to expect the person to appeal. (Local Government Act 1974, section 26(6)(a), as amended) SEND is a Tribunal that considers special educational needs. (The Special Educational Needs and Disability Tribunal (‘SEND’))
7. 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)
8. Under the information sharing agreement between the Local Government and Social Care Ombudsman and the Office for Standards in Education, Children’s Services and Skills (Ofsted), we will share this decision with Ofsted.

Back to top

How I considered this complaint

9. As part of the investigation, I have:
• considered the complaint and the documents provided by Miss Q;
• made enquiries of the Council and considered its responses;
• spoken to Miss Q;
• considered Miss Q’s comments on some of the information the Council sent us;
• sent my draft decision to Miss Q and the Council. They agreed with my findings.
10. The events covered in Miss Q’s complaint started when she applied, in late 2018, for an assessment of R’s special educational needs. Miss Q complained to the Ombudsman in July 2020. A complaint about historical issues would be caught by the restriction set out in paragraph 4. However, as the matters were ongoing when Miss Q brought the complaint to us, I have exercised my discretion to investigate these matters back to December 2018. The decision to do this is informed by:
• evidence that, periodically, Miss Q was in contact with the Council about the matter;
• the Council says Miss Q tried to complain earlier than the 2020 complaint it responded to; and
• there are suitable records available for what happened in this period. So I can likely come to a robust decision, despite the passage of time.

Back to top

What I found

Legal and administrative background

Special educational needs

11. A parent of a child with special educational needs can request a council carries out an assessment of those needs. The council must decide whether to carry out an assessment within six weeks. The timescale for assessment is a maximum of 20 weeks with an emphasis on completing the steps involved as soon as practicable.
12. If a council decides to carry out an assessment and considers it necessary, the council must then produce an EHC Plan. This sets out the child’s needs and what arrangements should be made to meet them.
13. The Children and Families Act 2014 (the Act), the Special Educational Needs Code of Practice 2015 (the Code) and the Special Educational Needs and Disabilities Regulations 2014 (the Regulations) contain detailed guidance to councils about how they should manage the EHC Plan process.
14. Where a parent or young person disagrees with the contents of the Plan, there is a right of appeal to the SEND Tribunal. The EHC Plan is set out in sections. The Ombudsman cannot direct changes to the sections about education or name a different school. Only the Tribunal can do this.
15. Councils are responsible for making sure that arrangements specified in the EHC Plan are put in place. We can look at complaints about this, such as where support set out in the EHC Plan has not been provided, or where there have been delays in the process.

EHC Plan reviews

16. The Regulations require that, where a child is within 12 months of a transfer between phases of education, the council must review and amend, where necessary, the child’s EHC Plan before 15 February in the calendar year of the transfer. This gives time for parents to appeal to the SEND Tribunal before the start of the school year.

School attendance

17. Councils have a duty to make arrangements for the provision of suitable education at school or elsewhere for children of compulsory school age who, “by reason of illness, exclusion from school or otherwise may not for any period receive suitable education unless arrangements are made for them”. (Education Act 1996, section 19)
18. The term ‘suitable education’ is defined as efficient education suitable to the child’s age, ability and aptitude and to any special educational needs he or she may have. (Section 19(6) of the Education Act 1996) The education to be arranged by the local authority should be on a full-time basis, unless, in the interests of the child, part-time education is considered to be more suitable. This would usually be for reasons relating to the child’s physical or mental health.
19. Statutory guidance ‘Ensuring a good education for children who cannot attend school because of health needs’ and ‘Alternative Provision’ say:
• councils should have a written, publicly accessible, policy statement which explains how they will meet their legal duty towards children with additional health needs. This policy should make links with related services in the area, such as the Special Educational Needs and Disability Service and Children and Adolescent Mental Health Service (CaMHS);

• councils must provide suitable full-time education (or as much education as the child’s health condition allows) as soon as it is clear the child will be away from school for 15 days or more and make every effort to minimise the disruption to a child’s education;
• pupils in alternative provision should receive the same range, quality and amount of education as they would receive in a maintained school;
• if a child receives one-to-one provision, the hours of face-to-face provision could be fewer than full-time, as the provision is more concentrated;
• some complex or long-term health issues may be considered disabilities under equality legislation. The pattern of complex and long-term health illnesses can be unpredictable. Councils should discuss the child’s needs and how these may best be met with the school, relevant clinicians and parents, and where appropriate, the child.

20. Councils usually expect schools to arrange off-site provision in the first instance, but the duty to provide full-time education remains with the council.
21. One court case looked at an education authority’s duty to offer alternative education, where the reason the child was out of school was not illness or exclusion, but ‘other’. The court decided that whether the authority had a duty to offer alternative provision was determined by “the objective consideration of whether the education offered [ie at the school or college] is reasonably possible or reasonably practical to be accessed by the child in question…” (R(R) v Kent County Council [2007] EWHC 2135 (Admin))
22. The Ombudsman issued a Focus Report in September 2011 (amended in June 2016): ‘Out of school….out of mind?’. This gives guidance for local authorities on how we expect them to fulfil their responsibilities to provide education for children who, for whatever reason, do not attend school full-time. The report made six recommendations based on examples of good practice seen. It said councils should:

• consider the individual circumstances of each case and be aware they may need to act whatever the reason for absence (except for minor issues that schools deal with on a day-to-day basis), even when a child is on a school’s roll;
• consult all the professionals involved in a child's education and welfare, taking account of the evidence in coming to decisions;
• choose, based on all the evidence, whether to enforce attendance or provide the child with suitable alternative education;
• keep all cases of part-time education under review with a view to increasing it if a child's capacity to learn increases;
• adopt a strategic and planned approach to reintegrating children into mainstream education where they can do so; and
• put whatever action is chosen into practice without delay to ensure the child is back in education as soon as possible.

The Council’s complaints procedure

23. The Council’s complaints procedure, as published on its website, says it has a two stage complaints procedure. It says:
• “Stage 1: We will deal with your complaint within 10 working days.
• Stage 2: We will arrange for a senior officer to do a further investigation within 28 days if things are not resolved.

We will keep you informed if our investigation needs to take longer or if it needs to be handled differently.”

What happened

Year 5

24. In 2016 R was diagnosed with Autistic Spectrum Disorder (ASD), He has also been diagnosed with Delayed Sensory Processing Difficulties, Hypermobility and Generalised Anxiety. CaMHS, Occupational Therapy and Community Paediatrics have been involved in R’s care and wellbeing.
25. In December 2018, during R’s year 5 at primary school, the Council received a request, from the school, to assess R for an EHC Plan. At the time R was attending school on a reduced timetable – two hours a day. He was not going into the classroom.
26. The Council accepted R needed an EHC Plan in January 2019. By 12 June it had written a draft EHC Plan. In her complaint to the Council Miss Q says, around this time, the Council held a meeting. At that meeting an officer in its SEN Team (whom I shall refer to as Officer 1), advised that, starting in the new school year, the Council would arrange support for R, from an outside agency.
27. The Council finalised the EHC Plan in August. The Plan set out:
• special education provision around R’s: communication, interaction, following and understanding instructions, cognition and learning, social emotional and mental health, physical and sensory needs;
• health provision around: communication and interaction, social and emotional health;
• that R was not attending school regularly – he only managed a few hours a week;
• it had a goal that, by March 2020, R would attend school and have reengaged “…in all aspects of education”.

Year 6

28. Miss Q says:
• R did not attended school at all from September 2019 – the start of his last year in primary education;
• from October, Officer 1 was aware of this, as she told him, when chasing him about the start of the specialist support (see paragraph 26);
• in November she emailed managers about Officer 1’s lack of response. This resulted in the Council arranging a meeting at R’s school.
29. At the emergency meeting at the school, Miss Q advised that R’s EHC Plan needed changing, as he was not attending school, so not getting the support outlined in the Plan. She says all who attended the meeting agreed R needed to move to a specialist school.
30. The Council arranged some training for staff at R’s school around school refusers. This happened in November 2019. Miss Q says the school’s special educational needs co-ordinator told her that training was informative, but not sufficient to support R back into mainstream education, as that would need a whole school change. The school’s view was R needed a specialist placement.
31. In early December, the Council proposed to amend R’s EHC Plan. It consulted with four secondary schools about a possible placement for R from the following September. Three of these schools were specialist schools. The Council was unsuccessful then in finding R a school to attend the following school year.
32. Miss Q says she received a draft amended EHC Plan towards the end of December 2019. This noted in several places that R was not then attending school. The Council amended the EHC Plan on 17 February 2020. It still named the old school. Miss Q says she did not receive a copy.
33. There was a further meeting at the school on 11 March. The Council’s later records say this was discuss a placement from September and interim 1-1 tuition.
34. On the Council’s file is a response, from early April 2020, from CaMHS about R’s EHC Plan. This noted:
• R had struggled to attend school since the end of year 5;

• R was reluctant to even leave his bedroom. He was becoming increasingly housebound and had had no contact with peers;
• it had suggested the possibility of the introduction of home tutors, to facilitate a smooth transition from home to school.

35. On 22 April the Council says Officer 1 gave the school a list of home tuition providers.
36. The Council hosted a multi-agency meeting at the beginning of June, with its early help social worker in the lead role. The record of that meeting includes a note:
• that Officer 1 said one of the schools he had approached earlier in the year was reconsidering whether it could offer R a place;
• that if the Council could not find a school placement until September, R “…will need to have suitable arrangements made for education in the interim, which could be a non-school based setting”;
• the deputy head of R’s school and Miss Q had made enquiries to a home tuition provider. The provider said it did not offer online tuition, but was offering socially distanced 1:1 tuition. Miss Q’s view was R could not manage with that level of tuition and would need a gradual change to his routine;
• Officer 1 was to provide updates and seek a reassessment of R’s EHC Plan from the Council’s panel.
37. The Council has sent a record that its panel agreed to a reassessment. But it did not carry this out until 14 September.
38. R started at a new (specialist) school in September (the school that was reconsidering whether to accept R did agree he could start there). Miss Q notes he started without an updated EHC Plan. She says the school advised it had had no contact from Officer 1, or anybody else from the Council, about R’s history, or his transition to the school.
39. The Council did not complete an EHC Plan, naming the new school, until 14 January 2021. Miss Q says she is happy overall with the support the school is providing R. He has made progress and is now starting to attend school again.

The Council’s response to Miss Q’s complaints

40. In May 2020 Miss Q complained about the EHC process and a lack of contact from Officer 1. The Council’s first response, from a senior in its SEN and Pupil Support Team:
• apologised for the poor communication from Officer 1. It mentioned capacity issues within the service. It also noted that Miss Q had complained before and not received a response;
• apologised for the delays “…throughout the process”: both in writing the EHC Plan and in arranging education for R, after he was not able to attend school:

• advised: “[a]s a team we are unable to arrange alternative providers when a child is in a school setting; it is up to the school to choose a provider and fund this through the allocated budget.”

41. Miss Q asked to escalate her complaint to stage two of the Council’s process. The Council responded advising it had decided not to, because it was “…unlikely an investigation at Stage 2 will achieve a different outcome and not be able to achieve the outcome you want”. It signposted Miss Q to the Ombudsman.

The Council’s response to our enquiries

42. Miss Q complained to the Ombudsman. In response to our enquiries the Council responded as follows.

• We asked the Council for its policy and procedure for providing alternative education, for pupils unable to attend to school. It advised the team followed the statutory guidance: ‘Ensuring a good education for children who cannot attend school because of health needs’.
• It also has its own service – the Alder Centre for Education (ACE) – which provides education for children who cannot not go to school for health reasons.
• “The delays in the assessment processes were attributable to mismanagement of the EHC, at that time, and staff capacity pressures. There has since been a significant increase in staffing and general service improvement.”
• It accepted it took 29 weeks to complete the EHC assessment.
• Its officers do not keep a record of meetings at school, beyond that found in EHC Plans.
• “An early/emergency review was held in June 2020. Alongside this, a request for a reassessment of [R’s] EHCP was made and considered by a local authority panel. The reassessment was approved ... However, due to an administrative oversight the decision to reassess was not actioned within the statutory timeframe.”
• R’s “…needs are complex and finding a placement that would be suitable for [his] age, ability, aptitude and SEN was a lengthy and challenging process.”
• “an officer from the Council’s SEN Team attended numerous meetings at the school and signposted to specialists to support the school to reintegrate [R] back into school. The school were actively seeking support from private tuition companies but in-person tuition was postponed during lockdown periods.”
• “When it became clear that [R] was not managing to attend at all, despite the schools’ best efforts and advice from specialists, the Council began to consult with special schools”.
• “The Council acknowledges that [R] was not in receipt of education provision that met with needs for a period in 2019/20. Although it is not clear of the date the SEN service became aware of [R’s] non-attendance, the Council accepts that more could have been done during this time to secure alternative education for [R] and is keen to offer a fair and proportionate remedy for [R’s] missed education.”
• “The Council offer to pay for some additional tuition/support for [R], organised by [R’s] School up to the value of £1,000 in acknowledgement of the delay in arranging alternative education. The Council is confident this is the most suitable way to ensure that [R] receives the support he needs to meet his educational targets. The Council is confident the school would be more than happy to identify areas of provision which could very effectively be offered to [R] to boost his progress and attainment further.”

Was there fault by the Council?

Delay in completing an Education, Health and Care Plan

43. The Council should have completed the whole EHC process within 20 weeks of the date of the request for an assessment. I do not have the exact dates, but the Council’s submission that it took 29 weeks is around what I make it. So the Council delayed the initial assessment.
44. Miss Q says the August 2019 EHC Plan was not specific enough. That is an issue she could have asked a Tribunal to adjudicate on. I have not seen any reasons that would persuade me that this was not a reasonable thing to have expected Miss Q to have done. So it is not something I have investigated.
45. The Council was aware, through writing the EHC Plan, that in year 5, R was only attending school part-time. It should have considered, when it received this information, whether R needed any alternative provision. This would have likely involved, in the first instance, liaising with the school. It should also have records of keeping this under review (see paragraph 22). I can see no evidence in the Council’s records that it considered this duty. So I find fault with this issue.
46. The Council should have reviewed R’s EHC Plan by 15 February 2020, (as it was the year before he transferred to secondary education). The Council did issue a EHC Plan on 17 February. But that still named R’s primary school. So the Council missed the statutory target. That was fault.

Failure to provide appropriate or sufficient alternative education

47. The Council told us it uses the statutory guidance around children missing education because of ill-health. That guidance says councils should have a policy to show how different services will work together to meet pupils needs. As this is statutory guidance we would expect the Council to have good reason for not following it. It has not provided any reasons. Therefore, the Council’s failure to have a policy was fault.
48. The Council says it is unclear when it became aware R was not attending school. That itself is an indication of fault: its records should be sufficiently thorough to have this information. The Council says it does not keep records of meetings, except information that goes into EHC Plans. It is for the Council to decide how it keeps records. But, however it chooses to do so, it should have a record of substantive actions. Without a record, as in the above example, the Council does not meet our expectations for openness and clarity. So it makes it more likely the Ombudsman will find fault.
49. I accept Miss Q’s submission that she told Officer 1 in October 2019 R had not attended school since the end of year 5. In support of Miss Q’s account, is the fact that, shortly after Miss Q contacted a manager about this, the Council arranged a meeting about R’s EHC Plan. So, on the balance of probabilities, from October 2019 the Council was aware R had been absent from school for 15 or more days (see paragraph 19).
50. The Council’s says finding R a placement was challenging. It is likely that would also have been the case in finding alternative provision. We accept that in some particularly complex cases, it may be genuinely difficult for the council to find the right provision. Therefore, we will consider how reasonable it was for the council to meet its responsibilities before deciding whether there was fault.
51. But the problem for the Council is its files do not have records of the Council considering what its statutory duties were. And for many months there are no records of it doing anything to find alternative provision, or that it was checking with the school about what it was doing. The Council seems to have lost sight of its statutory duty. Instead its focus seems to have been on finding a suitable secondary placement for R. I find fault with that approach.
52. The Council’s files do not have any record of it considering whether the reason R was not attending school was because of illness or disability. This might have been relevant, for example, in considering whether R could have made use of the Council’s own Centre (see paragraph 42). I cannot see any record of the Council considering whether referral to the Centre was an option. The lack of records about these considerations was fault.
53. In R’s case, the relevant Council team says it does not arrange alternative providers where a child is still on a school’s role – it expected the school to arrange and fund this (see paragraph 40). It is up to the Council what arrangements it makes to meet its legal obligations. But the duty to provide suitable alternative provision was the Council’s, not the school’s (see paragraph 5). The Council should have kept some oversight over what the school was doing. I see no record of it having done this at the start of the process and for many months after. I find fault.
54. When, in April 2020, the Council does have some record of trying to arrange some alternative provision, all it did was to signpost the school to providers. Without some further planning and checking on the outcome of these suggestions, that was not sufficient action for the Council to discharge its statutory duties (see paragraph 22 for our view of what the Council should have done). So I also find fault for that period.

The complaint

55. The lack of any oversight or action from the Council meant Miss Q struggled to get anyone to put any provision in place. It is worrying that Miss Q’s complaint did not resolve this – the Council was wrong to say it was unlikely the complaint escalation would have unlikely to have reached a different outcome, as its later response to the Ombudsman demonstrates.
56. And the Council’s refusal to take a second stage complaint is at odds with what the Council’s website says should happen. I am unclear whether this is because the Council did not follow its own procedure, or because of the website information is wrong. Either reason is evidence of fault.

Did the fault cause an injustice?

The EHC Plan

57. The delays meant that, by the time the Council had finalised R’s EHC Plan, his year 5 had finished.
58. Although R struggled to go to school at all in year 6, the Council still needed to review his EHC Plan for transition to high school. It did not do this. This meant R started high school without a finalised plan.
59. There is some uncertainty about whether the Council could have done more in year 5 to assist R with providing more hours of education.
60. So, there is injustice to Miss Q and R of frustration and lost opportunities through the EHC Plan process. And uncertainty whether things might have been different, but for the delay. This includes the possibility that R might have coped better in year 6, but for these faults.

Failure to provide appropriate or sufficient education

61. It is likely the lack of a Council policy contributed to R’s case drifting and there not being a cohesive plan to return him to education.
62. The injustice to R is the loss of educational provision. This was for the whole of year 6 – a key year, as it was the year before his transition to secondary school. The fault begins from when the Council was aware of this: October at the latest.
63. It is difficult in retrospect to know how R might have coped with alternative provision if the Council had sought to provide it. To do so is too speculative. However, what we do know is that:
• the Council’s starting point should have been to look to provide ‘full-time’ (or equivalent) alternative education – the default position of the statutory guidance;
• R was on already on a reduced timetable in year 5;
• the Council took no action to assess how much alternative provision R might have coped with;
• around June 2020, Miss Q’s view was R could not cope with receiving, straight away, 1:1 tuition. But that was after around eleven months of not receiving any direct education. So it would be wrong to make any conclusions from that about what R would have been able to cope with the previous September.
64. Another factor is that, by the time the Council has records of the school seeking alternative provision, the first COVID-19 lockdown was under way. This likely limited the range of options that would have normally been available.
65. But, against that, many more children were by then not receiving the same level of education as they had before, which for comparative purposes, limits the injustice to R for that period.
66. Miss Q had to continually negotiate with and challenge the council, causing her distress which would have been avoided if the council had acted in accordance with the law and statutory guidance. Miss Q makes a powerful statement, which I have quoted in paragraph 2, about how this affected her.

Back to top

Recommended action

67. I welcome the Council’s recognition, in response to our enquiries, that the faults had a significant adverse impact on Miss Q and R. However our remedies guidance recommends a payment of between £200 and £600 a (term-time) month to acknowledge the impact of the loss of education out of school. It recommends the same tariff for special education provision. The Council’s offer of a remedy is insufficient when compared with that guidance.

Year 5 faults

68. I recommended the Council (within one month of my final decision) pay Miss Q £650 to be used for educational purposes, for the nine week delay in finalising the EHC Plan (£300 a month). In arriving at that figure I took account of the fact the Council did not consider whether it needed to do anything to aid the school in maximising the number of hours R was in suitable education. But I also noted this was a less significant year in terms of the education cycle.
69. I have asked the Council to make this payment to Miss Q, so she and R can consider alternative ways to use for payment for top-education in a way beneficial to R.

Year 6 faults

70. I recommended a monthly figure for R’s missed alternative education in year 6 of £450 a month. In arriving at that figure, I noted the examples in our guidance and took account of the following issues:
• that R has special educational needs;
• the lack of provision was in year 6, a transition year, so a key year in his education;
• the possibility R might not have been able to receive full-time education for most of time, due to:
1. his pattern of attendance before year 6; and
2. from March 2020, during the COVID-19 lockdown, many children had their education disrupted;
• that the lack of provision likely contribution to R’s social isolation.
71. I make the period of fault – from when the Council was aware of R not attending school to the end of the school year – to be around seven months (ie excluding September 2020 and school holidays).
72. So, I recommended that the Council (within one month of the date of my final decision) pay R’s school £3150 to be used for educational purposes.
73. This assumes the school can use the money to provide alternative provision to benefit R. Alternatively, the Council could make part of the payment into an account set up in R’s name, if Miss Q and R have ideas of other catch-up provision that might be beneficial for R. I asked the Council to consult with Miss Q and the school about this.
74. I also recommended the Council pay Miss Q:
• £400 to acknowledge her own distress in having to care for a child with complex needs without any support to her in providing alternative education;
• £200 for her time and trouble in trying to get the Council to comply with the law and statutory guidance, whilst coping with poor communications from it.
75. Lastly as a personal remedy, I asked the Council to apologise to R and Miss Q for the faults identified in this statement.
76. Within three months of my final decision, I recommended the Council:
• develop a local policy on alternative provision for children who cannot attend school because of health needs. This should outline how different services will work together to meet pupils needs;
• make sure the information on its website on complaint handling matches its local procedure;
• provides an update on lessons the Council has learned from the faults identified in this statement and what it has done to minimise the chances of a reoccurrence.
77. I am pleased that the Council has agreed to all my recommendations.

Back to top

Wider issues

78. In January 2019 Ofsted and the Care Quality Commission jointly inspected the Council’s local area Special Educational Needs. In February 2019 the inspectors issued their conclusions. They said the inspection raised significant concerns about the effectiveness of the local area. Within the inspectors’ report they referred to:
• poor quality EHC Plans;
• frequent delays in amending EHC Plans and that it was not uncommon for Plans to be two or three years out of date;
• city-wide issues around “…outcomes, exclusions and attendance, particularly for children and young people with [special educational needs]”.
79. The Inspectors required the local Partnership Board to produce and submit a Written Statement of Action to Ofsted that explained how it would tackle areas of significant weakness, including:
• the failure to take actions to remedy known weaknesses;
• the ‘significant weakness’ in the EHC process, timeliness and the quality of plans.
80. The Partnership Board produced its Statement in July 2019. This detailed document had actions around improving the quality of EHC Plans. This included service redesign and staff development. In August Ofsted deemed this plan fit for purpose.
81. As Ofsted reviewed the Council’s EHC provision during the same period this complaint relates to, we are not recommending any wider remedy about the EHC process. The issues have been highlighted by the inspectors who made recommendations to remedy the systemic issues.

Back to top

Final decision

82. I uphold this complaint. The Council has agreed to my recommendations, so I have completed my investigation.

Back to top

Investigator's decision on behalf of the Ombudsman