Summary: We will not investigate Miss X’s complaint about a special educational needs assessment. The specified time to complete the assessment is not yet ended.

The complaint

1. The complainant, whom I shall call Miss X, says the Council is taking too long to assess her child’s special educational needs and the Council’s communication upset her.

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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. (Local Government Act 1974, section 24A(6), as amended).

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How I considered this complaint

3. I considered information provided by the Miss X and the Council.
4. I considered the Ombudsman’s Assessment Code.
5. Miss X had an opportunity to comment on a draft version of this decision.

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My assessment

6. The Council agreed in April 2021 that it would assess Miss X’s child, D, for an Education Health and Care Plan (EHC Plan). It has not yet completed the assessment. Miss X complained to the Council. In its reply to her it said it had difficulties allocating an educational psychologist to assess D. It accepted there were delays. It also said that D’s current school had felt an EHC Plan was not necessary as it could offer extra resources to meet D’s needs.
7. The Code of Practice for EHC Plans says that the Council must complete the assessment process within 20 weeks. That timescale is not yet up. And there are also some exemptions to that time limit which mean it can be extended. We cannot establish the extent of any fault until we know the full delay period. In addition, it is not possible to establish the extent of any injustice to Miss X, or D, until we know the EHC Plan detail. We can then see if D missed any support because of any avoidable delays.
8. Miss X is upset the Council’s letter to her told her D’s school did not support the need for an assessment. I can see no significant fault in the Council informing her of this.

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Final decision

9. We will not investigate this complaint. This is because it is not possible to assess the fault or injustice at this stage.

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Investigator's decision on behalf of the Ombudsman