Summary: The Council took almost ten months to issue Education, Health and Care Plans for Ms X’s children in a key transition year in their education. The Council also failed to take sufficient action to ensure the children received the additional support in their Plans. As a result, the children missed out on provision to support their emotions and to assist them in reading and writing. Ms X has also been caused avoidable distress and frustration. To recognise the injustice caused to Ms X and both children, the Council has agreed to pay Ms X £1,400. The Council is already taking action to improve its services, so we have not made further recommendations.

The complaint

1. Ms X complained the Council failed to issue amended Education Health and Care Plans for her children, Z and Y, following their annual reviews in July 2024.
2. Ms X said as a result, her children did not have an up-to-date legal record of their special educational needs for an entire school year and they did not receive all the support in their Plans. Ms X said this caused them severe distress and affected their attainment 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 an injustice, we may suggest a remedy. (Local Government Act 1974, sections 26(1) and 26A(1), as amended)
4. When considering complaints, if there is a conflict of evidence, we make findings based on the balance of probabilities. This means that we look at the available relevant evidence and decide what was more likely to have happened.
5. 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)
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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What I have and have not investigated

7. I have investigated events from when they began at the 2 July 2024 annual review. I have exercised discretion to consider events until the Council issued the children’s final EHC Plans on 29 and 30 April 2025.
8. I have exercised discretion because there was ongoing injustice arising from the fault in this case and it would not have been reasonable to ask Ms X to make a new complaint to the Council about this later period.

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How I considered this complaint

9. I considered evidence provided by Ms X and the Council as well as relevant law, policy and guidance.
10. Ms X and the Council were given an opportunity to comment on a draft decision. All comments received were considered before making a final decision.

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What I found

Law and guidance

Education, Health and Care Plans (EHC Plans)

11. A young person with special educational needs may have an Education, Health and Care (EHC) plan. This sets out their needs and what arrangements should be made to meet them.
12. The EHC plan is set out in sections which include:
• Section B: The child or young person’s special educational needs. 
• Section F: The special educational provision needed by the child or the young person.  
• Section I: The name and/or type of school. 

Annual reviews

13. The Statutory Guidance: Special Educational needs and disability code of practice: 0-25 years (“the Code”) says:
• EHC plans must be reviewed as a minimum every 12 months (para 9.166);
• within four weeks of the review meeting the council must decide whether it proposes to keep the EHC plan as it is, amend the plan or cease to maintain it, and notify the child’s parent or young person and the educational setting (para 9.176);
• if the plan needs amending, councils should start the process of amendment without delay (para 9.176);
• if amending the plan, councils must send the child’s parent or the young person a copy of the existing plan and a notice providing details of the proposed amendments, and they must be given at least 15 calendar days to comment on the proposed changes (paras 9.194 & 9.195).
14. Within twelve weeks of the annual review meeting, the final, amended EHC plan must be issued. R (L, M and P) v Devon County Council [2022] EWHC 493 (Admin)

Duty to arrange section F provision

15. The council has a duty to make sure the child or young person receives the special educational provision set out in section F of an EHC Plan (Section 42 Children and Families Act).
16. The Courts have said the duty to arrange this provision is owed personally to the child and is non-delegable. This means if the council asks another organisation to make the provision and that organisation fails to do so, the council remains liable (R v London Borough of Harrow ex parte M [1997] ELR 62), (R v North Tyneside Borough Council [2010] EWCA Civ 135)  

What happened

17. Ms X’s children have special educational needs and mental health issues. They have EHC Plans, which set out several forms of support they need in school.
18. At the time of this complaint, they each had an EHC Plan which named both their previous school and the new school they would attend from September 2024.
19. Their plans said, in Section F, they needed emotional regulation support and access to assistive technologies for help with reading and writing.
20. In July 2024, the Council held an annual review ahead of the children starting a new phase of education and joining a different school. A professional attended from their new school, as well as their old school and the Council also attended.
21. The annual review focused on the children’s transition to their next school. The notes recorded the former school had not been able to implement all the provision in the children’s EHC Plans. The professional from the new school said they had concerns they also might not be able to provide all the section F provision with the current level of funding. Professionals noted some changes needed to be made to the EHC Plans.
22. The school sent the Council the meeting notes on 16 July 2024. The Council had twelve weeks to issue a final, amended EHC Plan after the annual review meeting date. However this date passed and the Council did not issue a final Plan.
23. Given concerns raised regarding section F provision, the Council said there would be a meeting after the children had attended school for three months to check how the provision was going. This meeting did not take place until six months into the school year.
24. At this time, Ms X chased the Council for updates by email regarding the children’s EHC Plans and often did not receive timely responses. The Council still did not issue a final Plan.
25. Due to the lack of responses, Ms X complained to the Council. She said the Council had significantly delayed issuing the children’s EHC Plans and they were attending their new school without an up-to-date record of their needs.
26. This Council has a three-stage complaint response and considered Ms X’s complaint at all stages between September 2024 and 10 April 2025. The Council accepted it had been at fault, specifically:
• It failed to ensure it held a meeting to check the children’s section F provision three months after they started at their new school;
• It significantly delayed issuing a final EHC Plan for the children following their 2024 annual reviews;
• It acknowledged that without the content of the Plans finalised, the support her children received may not have been up-to-date in terms of their needs; and
• It’s communication with Ms X had been poor and it delayed responding to her complaint.
27. The Council said some reasons for the faults had been staffing shortages and performance issues with a member of staff. The Council apologised to Ms X and said its managers in the team had taken learning from her case to improve its services.
28. The Council issued a final EHC Plan for both children in late April 2025. It took the Council almost ten months to issue these Plans.
29. The Council reviewed the children’s Plans again the following month. Ms X said at this annual review that several parts of the section F provision still had not been delivered since they started at the new school. This included assistive technology and some of the support around emotional regulation.
30. Ms X complained to the Ombudsman. She said the Council’s delay in issuing a final Plan for her children - setting out the support they needed in school - had made it very difficult for both her and the school to ensure the children were receiving the right provision. Ms X said because of this delay, her children missed out on provision, their educational attainment was impacted, their mental health was affected and the family were caused distress and frustration.

Service improvements at Cambridgeshire County Council

31. Since the Ombudsman found similar fault and injustice in other cases, this Council has made several improvements to its services, including;
• It began a Special Educational Needs service improvement plan to take place from September 2025;
• It has reminded staff of the Council’s non-delegable duty to ensure that children receive the provision in section F of their EHC Plans; and
• It is updating the Ombudsman on its action plan to recruit additional SEND staff and implement a new casework system.
32. As these service improvements were not yet underway at the time of the events Ms X complained about, I have not made further recommendations in this case. We will continue to monitor any trends or issues through our casework.

My findings

Delayed EHC Plans

33. The Council delayed issuing EHC Plans for Ms X’s children following their July 2024 annual reviews. Because of this, the children did not have an up-to-date record of their needs and the support needed to meet them for most of the school year in which they started at a new school. This was fault.
34. The Council also failed to respond to Ms X in a timely way when she sought updates about her children’s Plans and this was further fault. These faults caused avoidable distress and frustration to Ms X.

Missed section F provision

35. By the time the next annual review happened in May 2025, Ms X said the support such as assistive technologies and emotional regulation provision still had not been delivered.
36. Ms X’s contact with the Council in between the two annual reviews focussed on seeking finalised EHC Plans for the children, rather than highlighting that some section F provision was not being arranged at the new school. However, I do not consider, based on the facts of this case, that it was solely Ms X’s responsibility to keep bringing concerns about a lack of provision to the Council’s attention.
37. The Council was already aware from the July 2024 annual review that the new school said it may have problems delivering some of the provision. Ms X was in a difficult situation, as she did not yet know what the upcoming EHC Plan would include in section F and was waiting for the Council to issue this. Ms X also did not know how much provision was being missed, because the Council failed to arrange the meeting it said it would, to check on the provision with the new school by December 2024.
38. The Council has a non-delegable duty to deliver the provision set out in section F of EHC Plans. We recognise councils cannot keep a watching brief on how all provision is being delivered but it should respond to concerns that provision is not in place at any time. The Council failed to do this sufficiently in this case. On balance, I consider that this contributed to the children missing out on some key support in their Plans, during a key transition year in their education. In particular, the records show that support with reading and writing using assistive technologies and support around emotional regulation was not always delivered.

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Action

39. Within one month of the final decision, the Council has agreed to:
1. Pay Ms X £550 per child (£1,100 total) to reflect the section F provision they missed over more than two terms; and
2. Pay Ms X £300 to reflect the frustration and distress she was caused by chasing the Council repeatedly and receiving limited communication in return.
40. The Council should provide us with evidence it has complied with the above actions.

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Decision

41. I find fault causing injustice and the Council has agreed actions it will take to remedy injustice.

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Investigator's decision on behalf of the Ombudsman