Buckinghamshire Council (22 005 756)
Category : Education > Special educational needs
Decision : Closed after initial enquiries
Decision date : 14 Aug 2022
The Ombudsman's final decision:
Summary: We will not investigate Ms X’s complaint about the Learning Support Assistance to her child. There are no good reasons the late complaint rule should not apply.
The complaint
- The complainant, whom I shall call Ms X, says the Council failed to ensure her child, D’s, Education Health and Care Plan (EHC Plan) was provided from 2017 to 2021.
The Ombudsman’s role and powers
- 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 did. (Local Government Act 1974, sections 26B and 34D, as amended)
How I considered this complaint
- I considered information provided by Ms X and the Council.
- I considered the Ombudsman’s Assessment Code.
My assessment
- Ms X says her child, D, has an EHC Plan as they have special educational needs. This sets out D’s needs and what arrangements should be made to meet them. The EHC plan is set out in sections. The Council is responsible for making sure that arrangements named in the EHC plan are provided. We can look at complaints about this. This includes where support set out in the EHC plan has not been provided, or where there have been delays in the process.
- Ms X says the Council failed to ensure the learning support assistant specified in the EHC Plan was provided, including the number of hours specified, between 2017 and 2021.
- Ms X complained to the Council about EHC Plan issues. It replied to her complaint in November 2020 and February 2021. She did not include a complaint about the learning support assistant.
- We cannot investigate issues known to Ms X for more than 12 months before she complained to us in June 2022 unless there are good reasons she has delayed in complaining. Here there are not. Particularly because she made complaints about other EHC Plan issues.
Final decision
- We will not investigate Ms X’s complaint because there are no good reasons the late complaint rule should not apply.
Investigator's decision on behalf of the Ombudsman