Summary: Miss X complains the Council took too long to complete her daughter Y’s EHC needs assessment and failed to arrange any education for Y after she stopped attending school. We found the Council was at fault for significant delay, failing to arrange suitable education while Y was out of school, and poor record-keeping and complaint handling. This caused Y a prolonged loss of education and caused Miss X distress, uncertainty and avoidable time and trouble. The Council has accepted our recommendations.

The complaint

1. Miss X complains the Council failed to complete her daughter, Y’s Education, Health and Care (EHC) needs assessment within the 20-week statutory timescale. Miss X also complains that Y has been out of education since April 2024 and the Council has failed to provide any alternative education provision. Miss X says the Council’s failings have caused distress, uncertainty, and a prolonged period without education for her daughter.

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The Ombudsman’s role and powers

2. 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)
3. 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)
4. 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

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

Education, Health and Care (EHC) needs assessments and Plans

7. The Children and Families Act 2014 and the Special Educational Needs and Disability Regulations 2014 set out the process and timescales for EHC needs assessments and plans. When a council receives a request for an EHC needs assessment, it must decide whether to carry out an assessment within six weeks. If it decides to assess and then issue a plan, it should normally issue the final EHC plan within 20 weeks of the request. There are only limited circumstances in which councils can lawfully extend these timescales.
8. Where a council maintains an EHC plan it must secure the special educational provision specified in the plan. (Children and Families Act 2014, section 42)

Alternative education – section 19 Education Act 1996

9. Under section 19 of the Education Act 1996, councils must arrange suitable education for children of compulsory school age who, because of exclusion, illness or otherwise, would not receive suitable education without such arrangements. This duty arises when education is not otherwise available or accessible and councils must act reasonably promptly once they know a child is not receiving suitable education. The education should be full-time, or as much as the child’s health or circumstances reasonably allow.

Elective home education

10. Parents have a duty under section 7 of the Education Act 1996 to ensure their child receives efficient full-time education suitable to their age, ability, aptitude and any special educational needs. They may choose to discharge this duty by educating their child at home.
11. Government guidance on elective home education says councils should be satisfied that any decision to home educate is genuinely made by the parent, that parents understand they are taking on responsibility for arranging education, and that councils keep appropriate records. Where there is evidence a child who is said to be home educated may not be receiving suitable education, councils should consider what action is needed and whether any duty to arrange education is engaged.

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What happened

12. I have included a summary of some of the key events in this complaint. This is not intended to be a comprehensive account of everything that took place.
13. Miss X’s daughter, Y, is of secondary school age and has special educational needs. Until spring 2024 she attended a mainstream secondary school (School A).
14. In March 2024 Miss X asked the Council to carry out an Education, Health and Care (EHC) needs assessment for Y. The Council agreed shortly afterwards, but outside the six-week statutory timescale.
15. Around April 2024 Y stopped attending school. The Council removed her from School A’s roll and recorded her as electively home educated. The Council says this reflected parental choice. Miss X says she did not choose to home educate and that Y has been out of education since then.
16. The Council continued with the EHC needs assessment during 2024. In the summer it considered Y’s case at a placement panel, which identified School A as the school she should attend. Miss X says Y did not return to school and remained out of education. The Council did not arrange any alternative education for her.
17. By September 2024 Miss X had not received a draft or final EHC plan. She complained to the Council that it was in breach of the 20-week statutory timescale, that her emails had been ignored, and that staffing pressures were not a lawful reason for delay.
18. Later in 2024 the Council issued a draft EHC plan for Y and asked Miss X for her comments. In January 2025 it sent its Stage 1 complaint response. It accepted it had not met the six-week and 20-week timescales and that there had been poor communication, and it apologised. It did not offer Miss X any personal remedy.
19. Miss X asked the Council to escalate her complaint. She said Y’s caseworker had changed several times, the draft plan sent to schools was incomplete, the process had taken considerably longer than the law allows, and Y had been out of education since April 2024. She also said it was incorrect to describe Y as electively home educated because this was not the family’s choice.
20. The Council decided not to progress the complaint to Stage 2. It said Stage 1 had already upheld the complaint about delay and communication and there was nothing more a Stage 2 review could add at that stage. It told Miss X she could ask for a further review once the final EHC plan was issued and signposted her to the Ombudsman.
21. In early 2025, the Council’s elective home education officer told colleagues that Y wished to return to a school setting. The Council then consulted schools including a specialist provision, which said it could not meet Y’s needs, and an independent school (School B) which agreed to admit her. The Council named School B in Y’s final EHC plan, issued in June 2025, with a planned start in September 2025.
22. Throughout the period from Y leaving School A until the planned start at School B, the Council did not arrange any formal education for her. It says it did not consider it had a duty to do so because Y was recorded as electively home educated. Miss X says Y received no education and became increasingly anxious and socially isolated.

Enquiries to the Council

23. As part of my investigation, I made enquiries to the Council. Of note:
• It accepted it did not meet the statutory timescales for deciding whether to assess Y and for issuing a final EHC plan. It said this was because of high demand for EHC needs assessments and limited staffing capacity in the SEND team, which led to a backlog of cases.
• It said Y was removed from her mainstream school’s roll in spring 2024 and recorded as electively home educated. It told me this was based on parental choice and that this categorisation influenced its view that it did not have a duty to arrange alternative education for Y.
• It confirmed it did not arrange any formal educational provision for Y while she was recorded as electively home educated. It said it considered that, under education law, the duty to provide education rests with parents who choose to home educate.
• It told me it did not consider its duty under section 19 of the Education Act 1996 to arrange education for Y while she was out of school. It said this was because it regarded Y as electively home educated rather than a child unable to attend school.
• It said that, in early 2025, its elective home education officer told the SEND team that Y wished to return to a school setting. The Council then consulted schools, including a specialist provision which said it could not meet Y’s needs, and an independent school (School B) which agreed to admit her from the start of the next school year. The Council named School B in Y’s final EHC plan.
• It confirmed that, by the time it issued the final EHC plan, Y had not been attending school and had not received Council-arranged education for an extended period.
• It accepted there had been delays in completing the EHC process and that this caused avoidable distress. It offered Miss X £1,600 to recognise the delay and a further £500 to recognise distress

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Analysis

Delay in the EHC needs assessment and issuing the Plan

24. The law says that when a council receives a request for an EHC needs assessment it must decide whether to carry out an assessment within six weeks. If it decides to assess and then issue a plan, it should normally issue the final EHC plan within 20 weeks of the request. There are only limited circumstances in which councils can lawfully extend these timescales, for example where a parent is unavailable or there are exceptional circumstances affecting a child or young person.
25. In this case the Council received a parental request for an EHC needs assessment in March 2024. It decided to assess shortly afterwards, but outside the six-week timescale. It did not issue a draft EHC plan until later in 2024 and did not issue the final EHC plan until June 2025, around 15 months after the request. This was significantly beyond the 20-week limit set out in the regulations.
26. The Council has accepted it did not meet the statutory timescales for deciding whether to assess Y or for issuing her final EHC plan. It told Miss X, and later told me, that this was because of high demand for EHC needs assessments and limited staffing capacity in the SEND team, which led to a backlog of cases.
27. While I recognise the pressures the Council describes, staffing shortages and high caseloads do not fall within the limited exceptions which allow councils to depart from the statutory timescales. They do not, by themselves, justify the degree of delay that occurred in Y’s case.
28. I therefore find the Council was at fault in failing to comply with the legal timescales for the EHC needs assessment and for issuing Y’s final EHC plan. The significant delay meant Miss X and Y were left in uncertainty for many months about Y’s special educational needs, the provision that should be arranged for her, and the school she would attend. Miss X had to chase the Council for updates and then make a formal complaint, which added to her time and trouble. This avoidable uncertainty and distress is an injustice to Miss X and Y.
29. I take the Council’s delay into account when considering the wider impact on Y’s education below, together with the effect of the Council’s decisions about her school place and its duty to arrange education while she was out of school.

Y’s education while out of school and the Council’s section 19 duty

30. Councils must arrange suitable education for children of compulsory school age who, because of exclusion, illness or otherwise, would not receive suitable education without such arrangements. This duty applies where a child is out of school and education is not otherwise available and accessible to them.

April 2024 to early 2025 – initial period out of school

31. Y stopped attending School A in spring 2024. The Council removed her from the school roll and recorded her as electively home educated. The Council says this reflected parental choice. Miss X says she did not choose to home educate and that Y has been out of education since leaving School A.
32. The Council has not provided any contemporaneous records of the discussions which led to Y being recorded as electively home educated, such as a written request from Miss X, a record of advice about the implications of home education, or any assessment of the suitability of provision at home. It has also not provided evidence it reviewed Y’s education after she was taken off roll.
33. By the time of Miss X’s complaints in late 2024 and early 2025, the Council knew Y was not attending school. In her Stage 2 complaint Miss X said clearly that Y had been out of education since April 2024 and that the statement Y was “electively home educated” was incorrect because this was not the family’s choice. The Council’s response did not address this, and it did not investigate further whether Y was in fact receiving suitable education.
34. In the absence of adequate records from the Council, and taking into account Miss X’s written complaints that Y had been out of education since leaving School A and that she had not chosen to home educate, I cannot be satisfied Y was receiving suitable education during this period. On balance, I consider it more likely than not that, after Y left School A, she was not attending school and was not receiving suitable, structured education elsewhere.
35. Once the Council knew Y was out of school and Miss X had told it Y was not receiving education, it should have reassessed her situation and considered whether Y was receiving suitable education and whether it needed to arrange provision for her. Its failure to do so was fault. This fault contributed to Y remaining without suitable education for a prolonged period.

Early 2025 onwards – when Y asked to return to school

36. In early 2025 the Council’s elective home education officer told colleagues that Y wished to return to a school setting. By this point the Council knew:
• Y had been out of school for many months;
• Miss X disputed that home education was her choice; and
• no school place had yet been secured for Y.
37. Despite this, the Council did not arrange any interim education for Y while it worked to identify a school placement. It told me it did not consider its duty under section 19 to arrange education for her because it regarded her as electively home educated rather than a child unable to attend school.
38. In my view this gave undue weight to the “electively home educated” label and not enough to the reality that Y was out of school, had asked to return to a school environment, and, on the evidence available, was not receiving suitable education elsewhere. By this stage the Council should clearly have revisited its assumptions and considered its duty to arrange suitable education under section 19.
39. I therefore find the Council was at fault in failing, from early 2025 onwards, to review Y’s circumstances and to consider, and if necessary exercise, its duty to arrange education for her. This fault meant Y continued to go without education for the remainder of that school year.
40. The lack of suitable education over this extended period is a significant injustice to Y. She missed education she should have received at secondary level and lost opportunities to maintain and develop social and practical skills. Miss X reports Y became increasingly anxious and isolated. Miss X also experienced distress and uncertainty in seeing her daughter out of school and having to pursue the Council and then complain to us. I will take this loss of education and its impact into account when I consider the remedy later in this decision.

Elective home education status and record-keeping

41. When a child is removed from a school roll to be educated at home, councils should keep clear records of how that decision was made. They should be able to show the decision to home educate was made by the parent, that the parent understood they would take on responsibility for arranging education, and that the council has considered whether the education provided is suitable.
42. In Y’s case the Council says she was removed from School A’s roll and recorded as electively home educated based on parental choice. In response to my specific request for evidence of any agreement to elective home education, the Council did not provide records such as a written request from Miss X, a record that she understood the implications, or case notes of discussions explaining the decision. It has also not provided evidence it reviewed whether Y was receiving suitable education after she was taken off roll.
43. By the time of Miss X’s Stage 2 complaint, the Council had clear evidence that the EHE classification was disputed. Miss X said the description of Y as electively home educated was incorrect and that this was not the family’s choice. Despite this, the Council did not revisit its records, seek clarification from Miss X, or record any review of whether the EHE status remained appropriate.
44. Instead, the Council continued to rely on the EHE classification as the basis for deciding it did not need to consider arranging education for Y. In doing so, it allowed a label in its records to drive decision-making, without checking whether that label still accurately reflected Y’s situation or Miss X’s wishes.
45. I consider the Council’s failure to retain adequate records about how Y came to be recorded as electively home educated, and its failure to review that status once it was challenged, to be administrative fault. That fault contributed to the Council’s misunderstanding of its responsibilities towards Y and to the prolonged period during which it did not consider arranging education for her.
46. The poor record-keeping and lack of review added to Miss X’s uncertainty about Y’s status and her entitlements. It also meant Miss X had to expend additional time and effort challenging the EHE classification and explaining that she did not regard home education as a genuine choice.

Complaint handling

47. Councils should have clear complaint procedures and follow them. Where there is a two-stage process, we expect councils to carry out a fair review at each stage, consider any new issues raised, and, where fault is identified, consider whether to offer an appropriate remedy.
48. Miss X complained to the Council in 2024 about delay in completing Y’s EHC assessment and about poor communication. At Stage 1 the Council accepted it had missed the six-week and 20-week statutory timescales and that there had been poor communication. It apologised and referred to wider service pressures and planned improvements. However, it did not at that stage consider whether Miss X and Y had suffered a personal injustice as a result of these failings or whether a financial remedy was appropriate.
49. Miss X then asked the Council to escalate her complaint. At that point she raised further concerns, including that Y’s caseworker had changed several times, that the draft plan sent to schools was incomplete, that Y had been out of education since April 2024, and that it was incorrect to describe Y as electively home educated. These were significant issues which had not been fully addressed at Stage 1.
50. The Council decided not to progress the complaint to Stage 2. It said Stage 1 had already upheld Miss X’s complaints about delay and communication and there was nothing more a Stage 2 review could add at that stage. It invited Miss X to come back once the final EHC plan had been issued and signposted her to the Ombudsman.
51. In my view this was not an adequate response. The Council did not engage with the new matters Miss X raised, including the allegation that Y had been out of education for almost a year and that the elective home education classification was wrong. It also did not use the Stage 2 request as an opportunity to consider whether any personal remedy was warranted for the accepted faults. Refusing to progress the complaint meant Miss X lost the chance of a full review within the Council’s own process.
52. I therefore find the Council was at fault in the way it handled Miss X’s complaint. It did not follow the spirit of its two-stage procedure and did not properly consider the further issues raised at Stage 2 or whether a remedy was appropriate once fault had been accepted.
53. As a result, Miss X experienced additional frustration and uncertainty and had to spend further time and trouble bringing her complaint to the Ombudsman to have these matters considered. The delay in the Council recognising and addressing the impact of its failings added to the injustice described above.

Remedy and injustice

54. The Council has already offered Miss X £1,600 to recognise the delay in completing Y’s EHC needs assessment and a further £500 to recognise avoidable distress. I consider this a reasonable starting point for the injustice arising from the delay and uncertainty in the EHC process.
55. However, for the reasons set out in my analysis, I do not consider the Council’s current offer is sufficient to remedy the more serious injustice caused by Y’s loss of education and by the way the Council handled Miss X’s complaint.
56. I have found the Council at fault for failing, over an extended period, to review Y’s circumstances when she was out of school and to consider, and if necessary exercise, its duty to arrange suitable education for her. On the evidence available, I consider it more likely than not that Y was without suitable, structured education for the equivalent of at least three school terms while this fault continued.
57. Our guidance on remedies says that where a child has missed education because of fault, we will usually recommend a symbolic payment of between £900 and £2,400 per term, depending on the level of provision missed and the impact on the child. In Y’s case she is of secondary school age, she missed almost all education for a prolonged period, and Miss X reports she became increasingly anxious and socially isolated. I consider a mid-range payment is appropriate. To recognise this loss of education, the Council should make an additional payment of £3,600 (equivalent to £1,200 per term for three terms) for Y’s benefit.
58. I have also found fault in the way the Council handled Miss X’s complaint. It did not use the Stage 1 process to consider whether a personal remedy was appropriate once it had accepted fault, and it then declined to progress the complaint to Stage 2 despite Miss X raising significant further concerns, including that Y had been out of education and that the elective home education classification was wrong. This meant Miss X had to spend additional time and effort pursuing her complaint and then bringing it to the Ombudsman.
59. Taking into account the overall distress Miss X experienced, the impact of seeing her daughter out of education, and the additional time and trouble caused by the Council’s complaint handling, I consider the Council’s existing offer of £500 is an appropriate and sufficient payment to recognise both distress and time and trouble. I do not recommend an additional payment under this head.

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Agreed action

60. To remedy injustice and prevent similar occurrences, the Council will:
1. write to Miss X to apologise for the faults identified in this decision and for the impact these had on her and Y;
2. pay Miss X £1,600 to recognise the delay in the EHC process, £500 to recognise distress and time and trouble, and £3,600 to recognise Y’s loss of education (for Y’s benefit). This is a total payment of £5,700.
3. remind relevant officers in its SEND and elective home education teams that they must keep clear records when a child is removed from a school roll to be educated at home, including evidence of an informed parental decision and any assessment of whether education at home is suitable; and
4. consider whether any targeted review is needed of children currently recorded as electively home educated who have Education, Health and Care plans, to assure itself they are receiving suitable education and that any Council duty to arrange education has been properly considered.
61. The Council will complete actions a) and b) within one month of the date of the Ombudsman’s final decision, and actions c) and d) within three months of that date. It will provide the Ombudsman with evidence it has complied with these actions.

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Decision

62. We found the Council was at fault for significant delay, failing to arrange suitable education while Y was out of school, and poor record-keeping and complaint handling. This caused Y a prolonged loss of education and caused Miss X distress, uncertainty and avoidable time and trouble. The Council has accepted our recommendations.

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Investigator's decision on behalf of the Ombudsman