Summary: We will not investigate Mrs X’s complaints about the Council's handling of her daughter’s special educational needs between 2019 and August 2023 because the complaints are late and I have seen no good reasons to exercise our discretion to investigate them. We will not investigate Mrs X’s concerns about the Council’s more recent actions because the Council has offered Mrs X £300 and we consider this a suitable remedy for Mrs X’s injustice.

The complaint

1. The complainant, Mrs X, complains about the Council’s handling of her daughter Y’s special educational needs since 2019. Her complaints include:
• The Council failed to provide suitable education for from February 2020 to January 2023,
• The Council delayed in issuing Y an Education Health and Care (EHC) Plan between September 2021 and May 2022,
• The Council failed to communicate with Mrs X properly about Y’s needs and the educational provision required to meet them,
• The Council failed to properly support the family in identifying suitable provision to meet Y’s needs and delayed putting it in place.
2. This list is not intended to be exhaustive.

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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 provide a free service but must use public money carefully. We may decide not to start or continue with an investigation if we are satisfied with the actions an organisation has taken or proposes to take. (Local Government Act 1974, section 24A(7), as amended)
4. The Local Government Act 1974 sets out our powers but also imposes restrictions on what we can investigate.
5. 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)
6. The law says we cannot normally investigate a complaint when someone has a right of appeal, reference or review to a tribunal about the same matter. However, we may decide to investigate if we consider it would be unreasonable to expect the person to use this right. (Local Government Act 1974, section 26(6)(a), as amended)
7. The First-tier Tribunal (Special Educational Needs and Disability) considers appeals against council decisions regarding special educational needs. We refer to it as the SEND Tribunal in this decision statement.

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How I considered this complaint

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

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My assessment

9. Mrs X first complained to the Ombudsman on 11 August 2024. Any complaint about matters which she was aware of before 11 August 2023 is therefore late.
10. Mrs X says she was unaware of the existence of the Ombudsman until recently but this does not provide good reason to exercise our discretion to investigate these issues. We have dealt with complaints about local authorities for 50 years and our service is well publicised. I therefore consider it would have been reasonable for Mrs X to complain to the Council and to us, sooner.
11. Mrs X has raised some concerns about the Council’s actions within the past 12 months but we do not investigate all the complaints we receive and must prioritise the most serious.
12. While the Council may have delayed putting some provision in place Mrs X confirms it has now made it available and the delay is not significant enough to warrant investigation. The Council has offered Mrs X £300 in recognition of the impact of its poor communication and errors and this is sufficient to remedy the injustice Mrs X claims. Mrs X questions whether the Council would have found and put the provision in place had it not been for the family suggesting it, but we cannot recommend a remedy for something which could have happened but did not.
13. We will not investigate Mrs X’s concerns about the Council’s consultations with other providers for Y’s post-16 education because it is too closely related to the contents of Y’s updated EHC Plan and Mrs X had a right of appeal against this to the SEND Tribunal.
14. Mrs X is also unhappy with the way the Council dealt with her complaint. But it is not a good use of public resources to look at the Council’s complaints handling if we are not going to look at the substantive issue complained about. We will not therefore investigate this issue separately.

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Final decision

15. We will not investigate this complaint. Any complaint about the Council’s actions between 2019 and August 2023 is late and the Council has provided a suitable remedy for the more recent issues. There is not enough unremedied injustice to warrant further investigation.

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Investigator's decision on behalf of the Ombudsman