Summary: We will not investigate this complaint about how the Council dealt with the education provision of Miss X’s son. This is because investigation would not add anything to the Council’s response.

The complaint

1. Miss X complains about how the Council dealt with her son, Z’s, education after he stopped attending school. She says the Council delayed arranging an annual review of Z’s Education Health and Care (EHC) Plan, failed to provide suitable him with full time education and failed to correspond with her properly or respond to her complaints on time.

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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 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 we could not add to any previous investigation by the organisation. (Local Government Act 1974, section 24A(6), as amended, section 34(B))

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How I considered this complaint

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

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My assessment

5. The Council upheld Miss X’s complaint apologising for how it handled the reviews of Z’s EHC Plan, his education provision and Miss X’s correspondence and complaints. The Council outlined steps it is taking to address the reasons for these issues and offered Miss X and Z a payment to remedy the injustice caused to them.
6. I will not investigate Miss X’s complaint. This is because the Council has already offered a suitable remedy via its own investigation of the matter. The Council’s remedy is in line with our guidance on remedies and the service improvements in line with what we would expect to see. There is nothing further we would add or recommend were we to investigate so we could not add to the Council’s investigation.

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Final decision

7. We will not investigate Miss X’s complaint because we could not add to the investigation carried out by the Council.

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Investigator's decision on behalf of the Ombudsman