Summary: The Council was at fault for not issuing Y’s Education Health and Care Plan within statutory timescales. The Council was also at fault for its poor communication and delayed complaint responses. The Council has agreed to apologise and make a payment to recognise Y’s missed provision.

The complaint

1. Miss X complained the Council failed to:
• issue Y’s EHC Plan within statutory timescales;
• respond to her emails in timely manner; and
• respond to her complaint within the timescales set out in the corporate complaints policy.
2. Miss X says Y has missed out on provision and it has also caused her distress, frustration and uncertainty.

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The Ombudsman’s role and powers

3. We investigate complaints about ‘maladministration’ and ‘service failure’. In this statement, I have used the word fault to refer to these. We must also consider whether any fault has had an adverse impact on the person making the complaint. I refer to this as ‘injustice’. If there has been fault which has caused significant injustice, or that could cause injustice to others in the future we may suggest a remedy. (Local Government Act 1974, sections 26(1) and 26A(1), as amended)
4. 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(1), as amended)
5. 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

6. I considered evidence provided by Miss X and the Council as well as relevant law, policy and guidance.
7. Miss 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

EHC Plan

8. 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.
9. 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 Code is based on the Children and Families Act 2014 and the SEND Regulations 2014. It says:
• where a council receives a request for an EHC needs assessment it must give its decision within six weeks whether to agree to the assessment;

• the process of assessing a child’s needs and developing EHC Plans “must be carried out in a timely manner”. Steps must be completed as soon as practicable; and
• 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.

10. 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.

The Council’s corporate complaints policy

11. The Council’s complaints policy says it will acknowledge a complaint within five working days.
12. The Council’s complaints policy says it will provide a stage one complaint response within 10 working days of acknowledging the complaint and a stage two complaint response within 20 working days of acknowledging the complaint.

The children’s statutory complaints procedure

13. The law sets out a three-stage procedure for councils to follow when looking at complaints about children’s social care services. The accompanying statutory guidance, ‘Getting the Best from Complaints’, explains councils’ responsibilities in more detail. We also published practitioner guidance on the procedures, setting out our expectations.
14. The first stage of the procedure is local resolution. Councils have up to 20 working days to respond.
15. If a complainant is not happy with a council’s stage one response, they can ask that it is considered at stage two. At this stage of the procedure, councils appoint an investigating officer (IO) to look into the complaint and an independent person (IP) who is responsible for overseeing the investigation and ensuring its independence.
16. Following the investigation, a senior manager (the adjudicating officer) at the council should carry out an adjudication. The officer considers the IO report and any report from the IP. They decide what the council’s response to the complaint will be, including what action it will take. The adjudicating officer should then write to the complainant with a copy of the investigation report, any report from the independent person and the adjudication response.
17. The whole stage two process should be completed within 25 working days but guidance allows an extension for up to 65 working days where required.

What happened

18. Miss X has a child Y with special education needs. At the end of June 2024, Miss X asked the Council to carry out an Education Health and Care (EHC) needs assessment. Y was attending a pre-school nursery at the time.
19. The Council agreed to carry out the assessment and requested educational psychology (EP) advice. The Council received the EP advice by August 2024 which was within timescales and decided Y required an EHC Plan. This meant to meet the statutory timescales, the Council should have issued the draft EHC Plan by October and the Final EHC Plan by November 2024.
20. At the start of September 2024, the Council told Miss X the contact details of the officer who would be overseeing Y’s case and advised they would be in touch. Miss X has provided records showing she emailed the Council in mid-September saying she had tried to get in touch with the officer but had no response.
21. Following this, the Council asked the officer again to get in touch with Miss X. Miss X emailed the Council again in mid-October to say she had not heard from them. The officer contacted Miss X at the end of October, which was six weeks after the initial email from the Council.
22. Miss X made a stage one complaint the same month. Miss X complained about the following:
• Poor communication from Y’s case officer; and
• Delays in the EHC needs assessment process.
23. In November 2024, the Council issued Y’s draft EHC Plan. This was approximately four weeks outside of timescales.
24. In February 2025, the Council issued Y’s final EHC Plan. The specialist provision Y was entitled to included but was not limited to the following:
• Structured, adult-facilitated (1:1 or 1:2 ratio) intervention using evidence informed strategies to develop Y’s language and communication skills. This will be developed by a specialist speech and language therapist (SALT) and delivered three times a day for 5-10 mins.
• Social skills group intervention, involving the explicit teaching of social interaction skills and interventions such as lego therapy.
• 12 SALT sessions lasting 60 minutes to support Y’s communication outcomes. This will include a combination of direct and indirect therapy approaches.
• 5 of the SALT sessions will be provided in autumn 2024 to support the new education staff to facilitate Y’s speech and language learning. These will be delivered on an approximately 2-3 weekly basis.
• 3 sessions will be provided in spring 2025 to support education staff to review Y’s goals and to implement an updated communication programme through direct modelling and coaching.
• A structured adult facilitated small group intervention to promote attention and listening skills.
• Staff to deliver a programme of daily gross motor skills to develop Y’s basic awareness.
25. Miss X appealed sections B and F of the Plan to the SEND tribunal. However, Miss X said during the appeal Y still attended the nursery and was receiving the specialist provision set out in the Plan.
26. The Council decided to respond to Miss X’s complaint through the children’s statutory complaints procedure. In March 2025, the Council issued a stage one response saying the following:
• The case officer should have introduced themselves within two working days of being allocated and responded to any correspondence within five working days; and
• It apologised for the lack of communication Miss X experienced and its delayed complaint responses.
27. Miss X escalated her complaint to stage two in March 2025 but to date she has not received a response. This was due to Council having only a small pool of independent people and investigating officers.
28. Miss X was dissatisfied with the Council’s handling of the matter and complained to us.

My findings

EHC Plan

29. Following Miss X’s request for the Council to carry out an EHC needs assessment, it had to follow the statutory timescales set out in the law and the code. Therefore, the Council should have decided whether to issue a Plan by October 2024 and then issued the final Plan by November 2024.
30. The EP advice was available by August 2024, however, due to a backlog of cases it issued the draft four weeks out of timescale and the final EHC Plan 14 weeks outside of the 20 week timescale. This was fault and meant that Y missed out on 12 weeks of the specialist provision set out in her EHC Plan over the autumn and spring term. It also significantly delayed Miss X’s appeal rights.

Delayed complaint responses

31. When Miss X made a stage one complaint in mid-October 2024, the Council should have provided a complaint response within 10 working days and by the end of October at the latest. The Council did not provide a stage one complaint response until the end of March 2025 which was a delay of five months and fault.
32. When Miss X made a stage two complaint at the end of March 2025, the Council should have provided a complaint response within 20 working days, so by the end of April at the latest. The Council to date has not provided a stage two response which is a delay of 11 months and fault.
33. The significant delays in issuing the complaint responses is partly due to the Council considering this case through the children’s statutory complaints procedure. However Miss X’s complaint does not meet the criteria for this procedure as the complaint is not about children’s services. The Council should have put this through its corporate complaints procedure.
34. This caused Miss X distress, frustration and uncertainty. It was also a missed opportunity to resolve the complaint sooner.

Poor communication

35. The Council accepted it failed to communicate within the timescales set out in paragraph 26. The case officer did not contact her within two days of allocation and did not respond to her follow up emails within five working days. The Council was at fault for its poor communication. As a result Miss X had to chase multiple times for a response to her queries. This caused her distress, frustration and uncertainty.

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Action

36. Within one month of the final decision, the Council has agreed to:
1. Apologise to Miss X for the distress, frustration and uncertainty caused the delays in issuing Y’s EHC Plan, the delays in issuing complaint responses and its poor communication. 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 in my findings.
2. Pay Miss X £900 to recognise Y’s loss of opportunity to receive provision for 12 weeks.
3. Pay Miss X £100 to recognise the distress, frustration and uncertainty caused by the delays in issuing complaint responses and its poor communication.
4. Remind officers by way of training or staff briefings of the importance of responding to correspondence within five working days and to complaints within the timescales set out in its complaints policy.
37. Within three months of the final decision, the Council has agreed to:
1. Create an action plan to address the delays in its EHC needs assessment process.
38. The Council should provide us with evidence it has complied with the above actions.

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Decision

39. I find fault causing injustice. The Council has agreed actions to remedy injustice.

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Investigator's decision on behalf of the Ombudsman