Summary: We will not investigate Mrs X’s complaint about the Council’s failure to act on a referral to its Autism Inclusion Team in 2022. This is because there is not enough evidence to show the Council received the email or, therefore, that it was at fault for failing to act on it.

The complaint

1. The complainant, Mrs X, complains the Council failed to act on a referral from her daughter’s (Y’s) school in 2022.

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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 effect 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 an investigation if we decide the tests set out in our Assessment Code are not met. (Local Government Act 1974, section 24A(6), as amended)

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How I considered this complaint

3. I considered information provided by Mrs X and the Ombudsman’s Assessment Code.

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My assessment

4. Y’s school sent a referral to the Council’s Autism Inclusion Team in September 2022 but Mrs X says neither she nor the school received any response. She says without the proper support in place Y was unable to attend school and has become isolated and worried about her future.
5. Mrs X complained to the Council in January 2024. The Council’s response explained it had no record of any referral being submitted. It declined to investigate the complaint at the second stage of its complaints procedure because it was unlikely this would lead to a different outcome.
6. While the evidence Mrs X provided clearly shows Y’s school submitted a referral to the Council this is not evidence that the Council received it. The Council’s searches have not located the referral or any evidence of the school’s email. It is therefore entirely possible that the email was not delivered to the Council and that it was therefore unaware of the need to act. In these circumstances we could not say the Council was at fault for failing to deal with the referral.
7. I appreciate Mrs X’s frustration but I see no basis for us to reach the conclusion, on the balance of probabilities, that the Council received the referral and deleted it without taking any action. We do not have the ability to forensically analyse the Council’s computer systems or, therefore, show that it received the email when it states it did not. It is therefore unlikely we would find fault by the Council or that investigation would achieve any worthwhile outcome for Mrs X.

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Final decision

8. We will not investigate this complaint. This is because there is not enough evidence of fault by the Council.

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Investigator's decision on behalf of the Ombudsman