Summary: We will not investigate Mrs X’s complaint about the Council’s decision to register her child, Y, as a “Child Missing Education” or about the Council’s poor communication. This is because there is insufficient evidence of fault for part of the complaint, and the Council has already apologised for its poor communication and made service improvements. An investigation by the Ombudsman is unlikely to achieve any additional outcome.

The complaint

1. Mrs X complained the Council placed her child, Y, on a “Child Missing Education” (CME) list. Mrs X also complained the Council failed to communicate with her regarding the matter.
2. Mrs X said this caused her distress and uncertainty.

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The Ombudsman’s role and powers

3. We investigate 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 continue an investigation if we decide:

• there is not enough evidence of fault to justify investigating, or
• we could not add to any previous investigation by the organisation, or
• further investigation would not lead to a different outcome, or
• there is no worthwhile outcome achievable by our investigation.

(Local Government Act 1974, section 24A(6), as amended, section 34(B))

4. 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

5. I considered information provided by the complainant.
6. I considered the Ombudsman’s Assessment Code.

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My assessment

7. We will not investigate Mrs X’s complaint that the Council placed her child, Y, on a CME list or about its poor communication.
8. In its complaint response the Council acknowledged it had placed Y on the list as part of an internal process due to unique circumstances following a SEND Tribunal Order. The Tribunal instructed the Council to amend Y’s Education, Health and Care (EHC) Plan to name a type of school under section I.
9. The Council said to ensure Y’s EHC Plan was processed correctly, its SEND Team categorised Y as CME internally because they were technically not attending school, but that this would have no consequences for Mrs X and was only used to track Y’s progress as it tried to find a school for them to attend. It later removed Y from the CME list when a school was identified. It acknowledged it had not communicated with Mrs X effectively about the matter.
10. There is insufficient evidence of fault in the Council’s decision to place Y on the CME list. This is because Y was not attending school, and the Council decided to categorise them as such. Therefore, we will not investigate this complaint.
11. However, the Council accepted it had failed to communicate with Mrs X about why it had categorised Y as CME. It apologised for any distress or uncertainty caused by its poor communication and explained it had provided training to relevant staff members to prevent reoccurrence of the fault.
12. Consequently, an investigation by the Ombudsman is unlikely to achieve any additional outcome, and we will not investigate this complaint.

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Final decision

13. We will not investigate Mrs X’s complaint. We are unlikely to find fault in one aspect of the complaint, and the Council has already apologised for the fault and made service improvements for the remainder of the complaint. An investigation by the Ombudsman is unlikely to achieve any additional outcome.

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Investigator's decision on behalf of the Ombudsman