Summary: Ms X complained the Council failed to complete her child Y’s Education, Health and Care (EHC) needs assessment within statutory timeframes. The Council was at fault. It delayed issuing a final Education, Health and Care Plan by 52 weeks, caused by a delay in obtaining Educational Psychology (EP) advice. It also failed to keep oversight of Y’s part time alternative provision arrangements. The Council agreed to apologise to Ms X and make a payment to acknowledge the impact on Y’s education and the distress and uncertainty to Ms X.

The complaint

1. Ms X complained the Council failed to complete her child Y’s Education, Health and Care (EHC) needs assessment within the statutory timeframe, causing a subsequent delay in issuing the final EHC Plan.
2. She also complained Y was on a part time timetable which had gradually reduced since September 2024 and has not met their needs
3. Ms X says the matter is causing distress and uncertainty and impacting on Y’s education and development.

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The Ombudsman’s role and powers

4. 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)
5. If we are satisfied with an organisation’s actions or proposed actions, we can complete our investigation and issue a decision statement. (Local Government Act 1974, section 30(1B) and 34H(i), as amended)
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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How I considered this complaint

7. I considered evidence provided by Ms X and the Council as well as relevant law, policy and guidance.
8. Ms X and the Council had an opportunity to comment on my draft decision. I considered any comments before making a final decision.

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What I found

Relevant law and guidance

Education, Health and Care Plans

9. A child or young person with special educational needs may have an Education, Health and Care (EHC) Plan. This document sets out the child’s needs and what arrangements should be made to meet them. The EHC Plan is set out in sections. We cannot direct changes to the sections about their needs, education, or the name of the educational placement. Only the tribunal or the council can do this.

Timescales and process for EHC assessment 

10. Statutory guidance ‘Special educational needs and disability code of practice: 0 to 25 years’ (‘the Code’) sets out the process for carrying out EHC assessments and producing EHC Plans. The guidance is based on the Children and Families Act 2014 and the SEN Regulations 2014. It says the following: 

• Where the council receives a request for an EHC needs assessment it must decide whether to agree to the assessment and send its decision to the parent of the child or the young person within six weeks. 
• The process of assessing needs and developing EHC Plans “must be carried out in a timely manner”. Steps must be completed as soon as practicable. 
• If the council goes on to carry out an assessment, it must decide whether to issue an EHC Plan or refuse to issue a Plan within 16 weeks.
• If the council goes on to issue an EHC Plan, the whole process from the point when an assessment is requested until the final EHC Plan is issued must take no more than 20 weeks (unless certain specific circumstances apply);  

11. As part of the EHC assessment councils must gather advice from relevant professionals (SEND 2014 Regulations, Regulation 6(1)). This includes advice and information from an Educational Psychologist (EP). It must also seek advice and information from other professionals requested by the parent, if it considers it is reasonable to do so. Those consulted have six weeks to provide the advice.
12. 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. The appeal can be against a decision not to assess, issue or amend an EHC Plan or about the content of the final EHC Plan

General section 19 duty

13. Councils must arrange suitable education at school or elsewhere for pupils who are out of school because of exclusion, illness or for other reasons, if they would not receive suitable education without such arrangements. [The provision generally should be full-time unless it is not in the child’s interests.] (Education Act 1996, section 19). We refer to this as section 19 or alternative education provision.
14. This applies to all children of compulsory school age living in the local council area, whether or not they are on the roll of a school. (Statutory guidance ‘Alternative Provision’ January 2013)

Part-time timetables

15. The DfE guidance (Working together to improve school attendance) states all pupils of compulsory school age are entitled to a full-time education. In very exceptional circumstances there may be a need for a temporary part-time timetable to meet a pupil’s individual needs. A part-time timetable must not be treated as a long-term solution. 
16. We have issued guidance on how we expect councils to fulfil their responsibilities to provide education for children who, for whatever reason, do not attend school full-time. Out of school, out of sight? published July 2022
17. We made six recommendations. Councils should:

• consider the individual circumstances of each case and be aware that a council may need to act whatever the reason for absence (except for minor issues that schools deal with on a day-to-day basis) – even when a child is on a school roll;
• consult all the professionals involved in a child's education and welfare, taking account of the evidence when making decisions;
• choose (based on all the evidence) whether to require attendance at school or provide the child with suitable alternative provision:
• keep all cases of part-time education under review with a view to increasing it if a child’s capacity to learn increases:
• work with parents and schools to draw up plans to reintegrate children to mainstream education as soon as possible, reviewing and amending plans as necessary:
• put the chosen action into practice without delay to ensure the child is back in education as soon as possible.

18. Where councils arrange for schools or other bodies to carry out their functions on their behalf, the council remains responsible. Therefore councils should retain oversight and control to ensure their duties are properly fulfilled.

What happened

19. Ms X has a child, Y who has special educational needs (SEN) and struggled to attend school full-time.
20. In February 2024, Ms X asked the Council to carry out an Education, Health and Care (EHC) needs assessment for Y. The Council agreed that same month but took no further action until March 2025, when it requested EP advice. It said the delay was due to a national shortage of EPs, and none were available prior to this date to provide advice to feed into Y’s assessment.
21. In June 2024 the Council said it became aware Y was attending school only part-time and no longer had access to full-time education. In response to our enquiries the Council acknowledged it took no further action at this time as Y was due to start at a new school from September 2024 onwards. At this stage there were five weeks left in the 2023/2024 academic year before the start of the summer holidays.
22. Y started at a new school in September 2024 and initially attended full-time. However, their attendance dropped after a couple of weeks and Ms X gave consent to reduce Y’s timetable to part-time education. Ms X confirmed Y then attended school initially for three hours daily, but this dropped further over the following months. By December Y attended school for only 1.5 hrs a day. Y’s hours reduced even further at the beginning of 2025.
23. In November 2024 the Council said its Education Access Team said Y’s school attendance at the new school had dropped to part-time again.
24. Ms X complained to the Council in early December 2024 about the delay in completing Y’s EHC needs assessment. The Council explained the delay was due to shortages in Educational Psychologists (EP) and its ongoing struggle to recruit and retain EPs.
25. In late December, the Council issued a stage two complaint response to Ms X, stating that it would allocate an EP to provide advice as soon as one became available.
26. Ms X remained dissatisfied with the Council’s response and complained to us about the ongoing delay and Y not receiving full-time education.
27. In January 2025, Y began attending an alternative provision which focused on therapeutic support, including emotional coaching and social skills development.
28. In May 2025, the Council informed Ms X it had received EP advice and in early June decided to issue Y with an EHC Plan which it said it issued the same day.
29. In June 2025 Y began attending an alternative provision offering therapeutic and vocational education for students unable to access a mainstream school setting.
30. In late June 2025, the Council issued Y’s final EHC Plan, naming ‘a mainstream primary school’ in Section I. In the accompanying letter, it informed Ms X that it would continue working with her to identify a suitable school placement for Y. The Council also confirmed it had consulted with the school preferred by both Y and Ms X and said it would reissue the EHC Plan once it confirmed a final placement.
31. If Ms X is unhappy with the content of the EHC Plan or the named placement then it is open for her to appeal to the SEND tribunal.

My findings

EHC needs assessment and Plan

32. We expect councils to follow statutory timescales set out in the law and the Code. We are likely to find fault where there are significant breaches of those timescales.
33. Following Ms X’s request for an EHC needs assessment the Council should have made the decision whether to issue a plan by end of May 2024 and then subsequently issued the final plan by June 2024.
34. The EP report should have been available to the Council by late April 2024 for it to have met the late May deadline. The EP report was not complete until May 2025 which was a delay of 52 weeks and fault. It caused a delay in the Council deciding whether to issue Y with an EHC Plan.
35. In total, the Council took over one year to assess Y and issue the final EHC Plan, instead of the 20 weeks statutory timescales due to the delay in obtaining EP advice and a backlog of cases.
36. This delay caused Ms X uncertainty and avoidable distress and delayed her appeal rights to the SEND tribunal.

General Section 19 duty

37. The Council became aware Y was only attending school on a part-time basis in June 2024. At this point the Council should have considered its Section 19 duty and decided whether to put alternative provision in place. The Council acknowledged in its response to us that it did not do so as Y was planning on attending a new school in September 2024. This was fault.
38. Y started at a new school in September 2024 but again reduced to a part-time schedule a couple of weeks later. Despite being aware Y was previously on a part time timetable at the end of the 2023/2024 academic year the Council failed to keep an oversight of Y at the new school early on in the 2024/2025 academic year. That was fault.
39. The Council started putting some alternative provision in place from January 2025 onwards. Between January and June 2025, Y received only limited alternative provision, which he attended three days per week. Again, there is no evidence of any Council oversight during this period which was fault.
40. On balance, it is unlikely Y would have been able to receive full time education given the difficulty he had when on a part time arrangement at the end of 2024. However, the Council’s failure to have proper oversight of Y’s part time arrangements between June 2024 and June 2025 leaves uncertainty around whether it could have done more to support them and try and reintegrate them back into a school environment
41. The Council has an ongoing SEND improvement plan which is addressing both EP shortage and how it considers its Section 19 duties. We will continue to monitor progress of this through our casework and so, further service improvement recommendations are not required at this time.

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Actions

42. Within one month of the final decision the Council agreed to take the following action:
1. apologise to Ms X and pay her £1,200 to acknowledge the distress and uncertainty caused by the delay in deciding whether to issue Y an EHC Plan caused by the delay in obtaining EP advice. We publish guidance on remedies which sets out our expectations for how organisations should apologise effectively to remedy injustice. The Council should consider this guidance in making the apology I have recommended.
2. pay Ms X £1500 to acknowledge the impact on Y’s education between June 2024 and June 2025 caused by the Council’s failure to have oversight of Y’s part-time education schedule at the start of the 2024/2025 academic year.
43. The Council agreed to provide us with evidence it has complied with the above actions.

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Decision

44. I found fault causing injustice. The Council agreed to our recommendations to remedy that injustice.

Investigator’s decision on behalf of the Ombudsman

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Investigator's decision on behalf of the Ombudsman