Summary: Miss X complained that the Council caused a delay in deciding her daughter’s special educational needs support. We have found that the Council was at fault. It caused a delay of nearly six months. This likely meant Miss X’s daughter missed out on some of the support she needed. Miss X herself also likely experienced inconvenience and distress. The Council has agreed take action to address their injustice.

The complaint

1. Miss X complains that the Council caused a delay when deciding the support her daughter, Y, should receive for her special educational needs.
2. Miss X says this delay caused Y to miss out on education because she did not have the right support. Miss X also says she herself suffered a financial injustice, because she had to take time off work to look after Y (who was on a part-time timetable at school).

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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. We cannot investigate complaints about what happens in schools unless it relates to special educational needs, when the schools are acting on behalf of the council to secure educational provision as set out in Section F of the young person’s Education, Health and Care Plan. (Local Government Act 1974, Schedule 5, paragraph 5(2), as amended)
5. 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)
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 Miss X and the Council as well as relevant law, policy and guidance.
8. 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

Statutory guidance

9. A child with special educational needs may have an education, health and care (EHC) plan. This document describes the arrangements which should be made to meet the child’s needs.
10. Statutory government guidance (the ‘SEND code of practice’) says that, within six weeks of receiving a request for an EHC needs assessment, the council must write to the child’s parent and tell them whether it will do an assessment.
11. If the council goes on to issue an EHC plan, the whole process (from the assessment request to the plan being issued) must take no more than 20 weeks.

What happened

12. In June 2024 the Council agreed to assess Y’s special educational needs and decide whether she needed an EHC plan.
13. In October, Miss X complained to the Council. She said there had been a delay to its assessment of Y’s needs. She said Y was still waiting to be assessed by an educational psychologist. She said Y was “in crisis” and at risk of being excluded from school.
14. The Council responded, saying:
• The delay had been caused by an “unprecedented demand in EHC requests combined with the national shortage of Educational Psychologists”.
• It had made a number of improvements to its service to try and overcome this shortage (including taking steps to attract psychologists to work for the Council, and using of locum psychologists). But the positive impact of these improvements was yet to be demonstrated.
15. Miss X asked the Council if it could use an educational psychology report which Y’s school had just commissioned. The Council said it was willing to review the report, but:

In prior experience we have found that the independent … reports are often not specific enough … they often do not contain the specific outcomes and provisions required to be able to make a fair judgement on issuing a plan, or … to be able to support the writing of an EHC plan.

16. In December, the Council updated its ‘Educational psychologist assessment backlog position: statement and recovery plan’. This set out, in detail, the actions it had taken (and would continue to take) to clear its backlog of uncompleted educational psychology assessments.
17. The Council completed its educational psychology report in February 2025 and issued Y’s EHC plan in April.

My findings

18. The statutory timescale for issuing EHC plans is clear and non-negotiable. The Council should have issued Y’s plan by the end of October 2024. It did not do so until the following April. This was a delay of almost six months, for which it was at fault.
19. The Council has explained the reason for the delay. I accept that there have been national problems recruiting educational psychologists to assess children’s special educational needs. However, this does not change the statutory timescale, or the injustice caused to Miss X and Y from the delay.
20. I have not commented on Mrs X’s alleged loss of income, because this was significantly influenced by Y’s school’s decision to put her on a part-time timetable. Internal school matters relating to curriculum and organisation are outside our jurisdiction. In any event, claims for losses of earnings are better dealt with by the courts than the Ombudsman.
21. Nonetheless, it is likely that – because of the delay to her EHC plan – Y will have missed out on some support, and Miss X will have suffered some inconvenience (not least from feeling she had to make a complaint to the Council and, subsequently, to us).
22. As the Council has already issued Y’s EHC plan and has taken steps to overcome the difficulties it is facing with educational psychology assessments, all that remains is for it to deliver symbolic remedies to Miss X and Y which recognise their injustice. My recommendations on this point now follow.

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Action

23. Within four weeks, the Council has agreed to:
• Write to Miss X, apologising for the delay in issuing Y’s EHC plan. We publish guidance which sets out what we expect an effective apology to look like. The Council should consider this guidance when writing to Miss X.
• Make a symbolic payment of £500 to Miss X, on Y’s behalf, to recognise that its delay to Y’s EHC plan likely caused her to lose some support over a six-month period.
• Make a further symbolic payment of £200 to Miss X to recognise that the delay also likely caused her some inconvenience and distress.
24. The Council will provide us with evidence it has made these payments.

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Decision

25. The Council was at fault. This caused injustice to Miss 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