Summary: Ms X complained that the Council delayed updating her daughter’s special educational needs support. We have found that the Council was at fault. It took more than two years longer than it should have done to update the support. It has agreed to apologise to Ms X and make symbolic payments to recognise the injustice to her and her daughter.

The complaint

1. Ms X says:
• The Council agreed, in November 2022, to make changes to her daughter’s (Y’s) special educational needs support. It should have done this by January 2023. But it did not do so until June 2025.
• During this period of delay, she repeatedly contacted the Council to try and find out what progress was being made. But her calls and emails frequently went unanswered.
• The Council has accepted that it was at fault for the delay and has offered her a financial remedy of £1,000. While her complaint is not about money, this offer does not adequately address the injustice caused to her and Y.
2. Ms X says this delay has had a significantly detrimental impact on Y and her education. She says Y, at the age of 11, was still receiving the support designed for her when she was 5. She says Y has not been able to communicate properly for a long time because she did not get the right support to do so.
3. Ms X also says she herself has suffered distress from pursuing this matter for well over two years. She says she lost earnings because the stress caused her to take unpaid leave.

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The Ombudsman’s role and powers

4. 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)
5. We cannot investigate late complaints unless we decide there are good reasons. Late complaints are when someone takes more than 12 months to complain to us about something a council has done. (Local Government Act 1974, sections 26B and 34D, as amended)
6. 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)
7. The First-tier Tribunal (Special Educational Needs and Disability) considers appeals against council decisions regarding special educational needs. We refer to it as the Tribunal in this decision statement.
8. If we are satisfied with a council’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)

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What I have and have not investigated

9. I cannot investigate any complaint Ms X makes about the support the Council eventually decided Y should receive. This includes any complaint about the Council failing to keep promises (or letting Miss X and Y down) in relation to provision or funding. This is because Ms X now has the right to appeal any disagreement she has about Y’s provision to the Tribunal, and it would be reasonable for her to use that right if she wants to challenge the provision.
10. Although much of the period Ms X complains about was more than a year before she complained to us – and therefore her complaint about that period is late – I have decided to exercise our discretion to investigate the whole period. This is because the Council’s statutory timescale for making changes to Y’s support began in 2022. To only make findings on part of that period would potentially involve ignoring the Council’s full statutory timeliness duty. It is not Ms X’s fault that this matter has only just been resolved.
11. I have, therefore, investigated Ms X’s complaint about delays from November 2022 onwards.

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How I considered this complaint

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

Statutory guidance

14. 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.
15. Statutory government guidance (the ‘SEND code of practice’) says that, within four weeks of an annual review, the council must write to the child’s parent and tell them whether it has decided to keep the EHC plan as it is, amend it or cease it.
16. If the council has decided to amend the plan, it must do so and issue a new one within a further eight weeks.

Previous Ombudsman decisions

17. In January this year, we found that the Council had caused delays while amending a different child’s EHC plan (case reference 24 001 450). We noted that we had found fault with the Council for the same thing before – six times – and, although we had asked the Council to remind its staff about the correct timescales, this had made little difference.
18. We recommended that the Council:
1. produce a dated action plan of how it will avoid recurrence of the same faults by making changes to practice and procedure or staff training; and
2. report this review outcome and action plan to its SEND Governance Board so it can decide how progress against the plan should be monitored.
19. The Council provided us with evidence that it had complied with this recommendation.
20. In February 2025, we issued a public report into a complaint against Tameside Metropolitan Borough Council (case reference 24 000 621).
21. We recommended that the council make symbolic payments to the complainant to recognise delays to its amendment of her sons’ EHC plans. These payments were set at the rate of £750 per year of delay.

What happened

22. The Council issued an EHC plan for Y in 2019. At that point, she was five years old.
23. Following an annual review of Y’s support in 2022, the Council – in November – wrote to Ms X, and told her it would amend Y’s plan.
24. The Council prepared a draft amended plan in 2023, but did not finalise it.
25. In January 2024, the Council recorded that Y’s EHC plan was “very out of date” and must be amended to reflect her changing needs. It said she needed occupational therapy intervention, which her existing plan did not include.
26. Ms X contacted the Council about Y’s case over the following months. But, a year later, Y’s draft plan had still not been finalised. Her case officer at the Council had changed at least twice by then and little progress had been made.
27. In January 2025, Y was allocated another new case officer, who agreed to meet with Ms X. This meeting had to be rearranged when the officer was off work unexpectedly. But, in March 2025, the Council issued another draft EHC plan for Y. It allowed Ms X time to provide comments.
28. Ms X provided those comments, and, in June, the Council issued Y’s final amended EHC plan. This plan differed significantly from her previous one.
29. Ms X complained about the service she and Y had received. The Council accepted the delay, which, it said, had been exacerbated by changes in Y’s case officers. It offered her a financial remedy of £1,000.

My findings

30. As the Council told Ms X that it would amend Y’s EHC plan in November 2022, it should have made these amendments – and issued an updated plan – by January 2023. It did not do so until June 2025. This was a huge delay, for which it was at fault.
31. The new plan is very different to the previous one. I do not know exactly how it would have looked if it had been issued two years ago. But, by the Council’s own admission, the plan was unsuitable for Y in 2022, and, by 2024, was “very out of date”.
32. I consider it likely that this meant Y experienced at least some loss of special educational needs provision, and some distress, over a long period. Below, I have made recommendations to address this injustice.
33. It is also likely that pursuing this matter for such a long time caused Ms X distress. I have made a further recommendation, below, to address this – although I am not in a position to comment on her alleged loss of earnings.
34. While, in similar circumstances, we would normally make recommendations for a council to improve its service, we have done this recently. The Council has provided details of an ongoing project to improve its performance. I do not consider it proportionate, at this stage, to recommend that the Council make further improvements. Time will tell whether its project is effective.

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Action

35. Within four weeks, the Council has agreed to:
• Write to Ms X, apologising for the significant delay in amending Y’s EHC plan. We publish guidance which sets out what we expect an effective apology to look like. The Council will consider this guidance when writing to Ms X.
• Make a symbolic payment of £1,800 to Ms X, on behalf of Y, to recognise that its long delay amending Y’s plan likely meant she experienced some loss of special educational provision, and some distress, for over two years.
• Make a symbolic payment of £500 to Miss X to recognise that the Council’s delay also likely caused her distress in her own right.
36. The Council will provide us with evidence it has done these things.

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Decision

37. The Council was at fault. This caused injustice to Ms X and Y, which the Council will now take action to address.

Investigator’s decision on behalf of the Ombudsman

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Investigator's decision on behalf of the Ombudsman