City of York Council (22 006 407)
Category : Education > Special educational needs
Decision : Closed after initial enquiries
Decision date : 11 Sep 2022
The Ombudsman's final decision:
Summary: We will not investigate this complaint about the Council’s failure to issue final Education Health and Care Plans for Mrs X‘s son following reviews of the Plan in 2019-20 and 2020-21. The fault in the form of delay by the Council is unlikely to have caused sufficient injustice to warrant investigation by us.
The complaint
- Mrs X said the Council failed to issue final Education Health and Care (EHC) Plans in two successive years after carrying out reviews of the Plan.
The Ombudsman’s role and powers
- The Ombudsman investigates 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 may decide not to continue with an investigation if we decide any injustice is not significant enough to justify our involvement. (Local Government Act 1974, section 24A(6))
- 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.
How I considered this complaint
- I considered information provided by the complainant.
- I considered the Ombudsman’s Assessment Code.
My assessment
- The complaint correspondence Mrs X sent us show the Council accepted it had not issued final EHC Plans as it should after reviews. However, while Mrs X did not have the right of appeal she should have had, she has confirmed to me that she would not have needed to use it because she was not looking for changes in educational provision for her son. His EHC Plan has since ceased owing to his age.
Final decision
- We will not investigate Mrs X’s complaint because there is insufficient injustice flowing from the acknowledged fault to warrant investigation.
Investigator's decision on behalf of the Ombudsman