Summary: We found fault with the Council failing to quantify Mr Y’s Education, Health and Care Plan provision from August 2024 until September 2025. We also found fault with the Council’s handling of Mr X’s complaint. The Council’s fault caused Mr X time, trouble and distress and Mr Y potentially lost support from their Education, Health and Care Plan. The Council agreed to apologise to Mr X and provide a symbolic financial payment for the injustice experienced.

The complaint

1. Mr X complained the Council failed to correct his child’s Education, Health and Care Plan as agreed in a previous Ombudsman decision made in 2024.
2. Mr X says his child continued to not receive suitable Education, Health and Care Plan provision because of this.

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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. The law says we cannot normally investigate a complaint when someone has a right of appeal, reference or review to a tribunal about the same matter. However, we may decide to investigate if we consider it would be unreasonable to expect the person to use this right. (Local Government Act 1974, section 26(6)(a), as amended)
5. 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.
6. The law says we cannot normally investigate a complaint unless we are satisfied the organisation knows about the complaint and has had an opportunity to investigate and reply. However, we may decide to investigate if we consider it would be unreasonable to notify the organisation of the complaint and give it an opportunity to investigate and reply. (Local Government Act 1974, section 26(5), section 34(B)6)
7. 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)
8. Under our information sharing agreement, we will share this decision statement with the Office for Standards in Education, Children’s Services and Skills (Ofsted).

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What I have and have not investigated

9. I have investigated Mr X’s complaint from August 2024 until September 2025.
10. I have not investigated matters before August 2024 because such matters have already been considered and addressed by the Ombudsman in its final decision produced in July 2024. All relevant injustice from the time period before August 2024 has already been considered and addressed.
11. I have ended my investigation in September 2025. This is because the Council produced a suitable updated final Education, Health and Care Plan for Mr X’s child which was appealable to the SEND Tribunal. Since Mr X had these appeal rights available to him, it was the appropriate body to consider any concerns about the content of this EHC Plan.
12. Mr X had already outlined the scope of his complaint to the Council within his complaints of May 2024 and August 2024. The Council addressed the scope of this complaint within its stage one and stage two complaint responses, the latter being in October 2025, shortly after the Council produced the final amended EHC Plan. Should Mr X have any concerns about matters outside the scope of the complaint he raised with the Council, or since September 2025, this would be the subject of a new complaint. Mr X would need to raise this with the Council and obtain a response from the Council before the Ombudsman could consider this complaint.

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How I considered this complaint

13. I considered evidence provided by Mr X and the Council as well as relevant law, policy and guidance.
14. Mr 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

Rules and regulations

EHC Plan 

15. 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. 
16. EHC Plans are required to be quantified and specific. L v Clarke and Somerset and Somerset [1998] ELR 129 says a Plan must be ‘so specific and so clear as to leave no room for doubt as to what has been decided is necessary in the individual case’.
17. Once the Council completes the EHC Plan it has a legal duty to deliver the educational and social care provision set out in the plan. The local health care provider will have the duty to deliver the health care provision.
18. The Ombudsman can look at any failure by the Council to deliver the provision within an EHC Plan.
19. There is a right of appeal to the Tribunal against:

• the description of a child or young person’s SEN, the special educational provision specified, the school or placement or that no school or other placement is specified;
• an amendment to these elements of an EHC Plan;
• a decision not to amend an EHC Plan following a review or reassessment; and
• a decision to cease to maintain an EHC Plan.

Complaint procedure

20. The Council has a two stage complaints procedure.
21. At stage one, the Council says it will acknowledge a complaint within five working days and provide a response within fifteen working days.
22. If a person is dissatisfied with their stage one complaint response they can request consideration at stage two. The Council says it will provide a stage two complaint response within twenty working days.

What happened

23. In July 2024, the Ombudsman produced a final decision for Mr X which found fault with the Council. Of relevance to this complaint, the Ombudsman found fault with the Council failing to ensure Mr X’s child’s, Mr Y’s, Section F provision was specified and quantified in their EHC Plan. The Ombudsman included agreed actions with the Council in the final decision. One agreed recommendation was for the Council to complete the following within four weeks of the final decision:
• liaise with the family to ensure Section F is properly quantified and specified so Mr Y has the correct support in place both to support his learning going forward and to ensure his safety. The Plan also needs to be clear about what provision is to be met by college, how many days of provision is to be provided, and what support is to be via social care as some provision (eg sport) appears in both education and social care sections.
24. In September 2024, Mr Y started to attend a new educational placement.
25. The Council held and annual review of Mr Y’s EHC Plan in November 2024.
26. Mr Y attended his educational placement for the first two terms of the academic year 2024/2025 but did not attend the final term because of time spent in hospital following a nervous breakdown.
27. On 14 May 2025, the Council issued an amended final EHC Plan for Mr Y. This amended final EHC Plan did not quantify or specify the full support Mr Y would need.
28. Mr X complained to the Council in May 2025 that the Council had failed to specify how Mr Y’s EHC Plan would be put in place and this is causing worry for September 2025. Mr X chased the Council in August 2025 for a response to his complaint.
29. The Council issued a stage one complaint response to Mr X in September 2025. The Council said:
• It apologised for failing to respond to Mr X’s complaint sooner and advised an administrative error meant his original contact in May 2025 was not registered properly.
• In February 2025, it agreed with Mr X that Mr Y would repeat their current course year again in the academic year 2025/2026 from September 2025 with funding provided by the Council for this. The Council said that Mr Y could continue the course for the remainder of the current academic year but with no assessments or assignments to allow time for physical and mental recovery.
• Following the Easter break in 2025, Mr Y spent some weeks as an in-patient in hospital.
• It completed works to try to quantify and specify Mr Y’s EHC Plan and this was due to be finalised soon.
• Mr X did not contact the Council before February 2025 to make it aware of the difficulties Mr Y was experiencing.
30. In September 2025, the Council issued a further amended final EHC Plan for Mr Y. This final EHC Plan quantified and specified the EHC Plan support in Section F. However, the Council retained Mr Y’s previous educational placement in Section I and did not update this to reflect the placement he started in September 2024. The Council provided Mr X with information about how he could appeal this EHC Plan to the SEND Tribunal.
31. Mr X sought consideration of his complaint at stage two of the Council’s process. Mr X said the Council’s response did not address the lack of support for Mr Y following their discharge from hospital. Mr X said the Council also did not address its failures causing Mr Y to have a nervous breakdown resulting in their admittance to hospital.
32. The Council issued a stage two complaint response to Mr X in October 2025. The Council said:
• It has only addressed Mr X’s complaint up to May 2025, when the complaint was submitted, as Mr X has made no reference to concerns after this date.
• It has confirmed with Mr X already it is only addressing complaints relevant to Mr Y’s EHC Plan and not the new issues raised about Adult Social Care. The Council advised Mr X to raise this as a separate complaint.
• It had reviewed Y’s previous EHC Plan and does not consider the Section F provision was either quantified or specific and did not meet the SEND Code of Practice and underpinning primary legislation.
• It should have updated Mr Y’s EHC Plan following the annual review in November 2024 to follow the Ombudsman’s previous decision.
• It has issued an updated final EHC Plan for Mr Y in September 2025 which Mr X can appeal to the SEND Tribunal.
• It cannot objectively say whether the arrangements in place for Mr Y were adequate or appropriate and therefore finds fault. The Council offered £1,000 per term for the first two terms of the academic year 2024/2025 as a symbolic payment for any injustice caused by potentially lost support. The Council offered this because of its inability to say with confidence whether the support required was in place.
• It is not qualified to comment on the cause of Mr Y’s mental breakdown resulting in his hospital admission and does not assume responsibility for this.
• It offered Mr X £500 for the time, trouble and distress caused in bringing this complaint.
• Directed Mr X to the Ombudsman with his complaint.

Analysis

EHC Plan quantification and delivery

33. In the Council’s stage two complaint response it has acknowledged its fault for not completing the recommendation outlined in the previous Ombudsman’s decision to quantify and specify the Section F provision in Mr Y’s EHC Plan.
34. The Council’s fault lasted from August 2024, four weeks following closure of the previous investigation as the given implementation timescale, until September 2025. This is when the Council produced an updated and amended final EHC Plan for Mr Y.
35. The Council has accepted its fault caused an injustice to Mr Y by way of being unable to say with any confidence whether Mr Y had the required support in place. This is a continuation of the injustice found in the previous Ombudsman’s decision. In this decision we found the failure to quantify and specify Mr Y’s Section F provision meant that, on the balance of probabilities, it was likely Mr Y would have had access to far more support.
36. The Council proposed to provide a payment of £1,000 per term for the first two terms of the academic year 2024/2025 to address this injustice its fault caused. This is consistent with the Ombudsman’s guidance on remedies and consistent with the findings from our previous investigation. I consider this was a suitable offer for the injustice caused to Mr X from August 2024 to April 2025, covering the first two terms of the academic year.
37. Mr Y did not attend his educational placement in the final term of the academic year 2024/2025 because of time as an in-patient in hospital and difficulties following discharge from the hospital. The Council was aware Mr Y was not attending the educational placement and not receiving either education or their EHC Plan provision. The Council offered for Mr Y to retake his educational course in the academic year 2025/2026 to address the breakdown of the course in 2024/2025. I consider this was a suitable offer to address the loss of the education and EHC Plan Mr Y in the final term. This is because the Council has directly arranged for this provision to be repeated in the following academic year.
38. I have addressed the impact to Mr X within the section titled “Complaint handling”.

Complaint handling

39. In the Council’s stage one complaint response it acknowledged it failed to register Mr X’s complaint. This meant the Council took fifteen weeks to provide a response to Mr X at stage one; this is twelve weeks outside its complaint handling procedure and was fault. At stage two, the Council issued its response a few days outside its complaint procedure; this was also fault.
40. The Council accepted its fault caused an injustice to Mr X through the need to bring a complaint to it in its complaint response and offered Mr X £500 for this injustice. This offer is at the higher end of the Ombudsman’s guidance on remedies and is an appropriate offer from the Council.

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Action

41. Within one month of the Ombudsman’s final decision the Council should:
1. Provide an apology to Mr X for the injustice caused by the Council’s failure to quantify Mr Y’s Education, Health and Care Plan provision and issues with the handling of his complaint. We publish guidance on remedies which sets out our expectations for how organisations should apologise effectively to remedy injustice. The organisation should consider this guidance in making the apology I have recommended in my findings.
2. Provide Mr X with a payment totalling £2,000 for Mr Y’s potential missed Education, Health and Care Plan provision for two full terms in the academic year 2024/2025.
3. Provide Mr X with a payment of £500 for the injustice caused by the Council’s poor handling of his complaint.
42. The Council should provide us with evidence it has complied with the above actions.

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Decision

43. There was fault leading to injustice. As the Council has agreed to my recommendations, I have completed my investigation.

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Investigator's decision on behalf of the Ombudsman