Summary: We will not investigate Miss X’s complaint about delays in the Education Health and Care Plan process. This is because the Council has agreed to apologise to Miss X and pay her £100 per month for the delay. We consider this an appropriate remedy and further investigation is therefore unlikely to achieve anything more.

The complaint

1. The complainant, Miss X, complains the Council failed to complete the Education, Health and Care (EHC) needs assessment process for her son, Y, in accordance with the statutory deadlines. Miss X requested an assessment on 27 September but the Council did not complete the process until 19 September 2024, some seven months late.

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The Ombudsman’s role and powers

2. We investigate complaints of injustice caused by ‘maladministration’  and ‘service failure’. I have used the word fault to refer to these. Service failure can happen when an organisation fails to provide a service as it should have done because of circumstances outside its control. We do not need to show any blame, intent, flawed policy or process, or bad faith by an organisation to say service failure (fault) has occurred. (Local Government Act 1974, sections 26(1), as amended)
3. 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)

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How I considered this complaint

4. I considered information provided by Miss X and the Council.
5. I considered the Ombudsman’s Assessment Code.
6. Under our information sharing agreement, we will share this decision with the Office for Standards in Education, Children’s Services and Skills (Ofsted).

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My assessment

7. The Council is required to carry out needs assessments and give notice of its decision about whether to issue an EHC Plan within 16 weeks from the date of the request for an assessment. If it decides to issue an EHC Plan it must do so within 20 weeks. It should therefore have completed the process and issued the final EHC Plan by 14 February 2024 but instead it took until 19 September 2024.
8. The Council has accepted delay in completing Y’s assessment and deciding whether to issue him an EHC Plan. It has explained that a lack of Educational Psychologists has contributed to the delay. The failure to issue a decision amounts to service failure.
9. We are satisfied the Council is taking action to deal with the issues caused by a lack of Educational Psychologists. In response to our findings in a previous case it sent us an action plan of its service improvements.
10. The Council has agreed to the following actions to remedy Miss X’s complaint:
• Apologise to Miss X for the delay in the EHC Plan process;
• Pay Miss X £100 for each month of delay. The process is now complete and we have calculated the delay as seven months. The Council should therefore pay Miss X £700. It should make this payment within four weeks of the date of this decision.
11. I consider the remedy agreed by the Council is suitable and that it is taking steps to address the issue at the heart of this complaint. It is therefore unlikely investigation would achieve anything more for Miss X.

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Final decision

12. We will not investigate this complaint. This is because the Council has agreed a suitable remedy for the injustice caused by its delay.

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Investigator's decision on behalf of the Ombudsman