Summary: We will not investigate this complaint that the Council failed to take action to make appropriate provision for the complainant’s son. The complaint is late and there are insufficient grounds for us to exercise our discretion to investigate it now.

The complaint

1. The complainant, Mrs X, complains that the Council’s education and children’s social care services failed to take action to make appropriate provision for her son.

Back to top

The Ombudsman’s role and powers

2. 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)

Back to top

How I considered this complaint

3. I considered information provided by the complainant and the Council.
4. I considered the Ombudsman’s Assessment Code.

Back to top

My assessment

5. Mrs X’s son has special educational needs and an Education Health and Care (EHC) plan. Mrs X says the Council’s education and children’s social care services have failed to ensure her son has had appropriate support and provision, and that this failure has had a negative impact on his welfare and life-chances. She contends that the Council’s failure to provide appropriate support led to her son leaving the family unit.
6. Mrs X says her son’s EHC plan was the subject of an appeal to the First-tier Tribunal (Special Educational Needs and Disability) in 2022. She says the provisions of the EHC plan issued following the appeal were not implemented by either service. She contends that this failure was material to the subsequent negative outcomes for her son and family.
7. Mrs X made a formal complaint to the Council in September 2023. The complaint included elements relating to both education and children’s social care and, as such, was responded to under the statutory procedure for children’s services complaints.
8. The statutory procedure has three stages. At Stage 2, the investigating officer upheld the complaint in part. The Council accepted the Stage 2 findings and recommendations, apologised and offered a symbolic payment for missed educational provision. Stage 2 concluded in July 2024.
9. Mrs X did not exercise her right to escalate her complaint to Stage 3 of the procedure. Rather, she complained to the Ombudsman. As she did so in September 2024, the complaint concerns substantive matters which took place more than a year before she came to us and is therefore late. Late complaints are when someone takes more than 12 months to complain to us about something a council has done.
10. The Ombudsman can decide to consider late complaints if it is appropriate to do so. Where the duration of a complaint procedure effectively prevents someone from coming to us within 12 months of the events, that may provide justification for doing so, but that is not the case here.
11. The statutory procedure provides a robust and effective mechanism through which complainants can have their concerns considered. Mrs X had appropriate input into Stage 2 of the procedure, which reached conclusions which appear soundly based. If she was unhappy with the findings or recommendations, her recourse was to escalate the matter to the final stage of the procedure. She did not do so.
12. Mrs X’s decision not to complete the statutory procedure effectively denied her the independent scrutiny provided by the Review Panel at Stage 3, at which the issue of further redress could have been considered. That is a matter for Mrs X, but it does not follow that the Ombudsman should intervene to substitute ourselves for the Review Panel’s function and reconsider the outcome of Stage 2.
13. Given that Mrs X did not complete the complaint procedure available to her and did not subsequently come to us directly after Stage 2 finished, I do not find that there are good reasons to investigate this late complaint now, and we will not do so.

Back to top

Final decision

14. We will not investigate Mrs X’s complaint because it is late and there are insufficient grounds for us to considerate now.

Back to top

Investigator's decision on behalf of the Ombudsman