Summary: The Council delayed issuing an Education, Health and Care Plan for Mr X’s child, Z, and failed to properly handle his complaints. This was fault and caused Mr X frustration and delayed his right of appeal to a tribunal. The Council also failed to ensure Z received all their speech and language sessions. However the Council’s faults did not lead to the injustice claimed, as these sessions were missed in part because Mr X refused the speech and language provision when this was offered.

The complaint

1. Mr X complained the Council wrongly ended his child’s speech and language therapy support from March 2024. Mr X also said the Council failed to investigate and respond to his complaints properly.
2. Mr X said because of the Council’s faults, his child missed out on speech and language therapy, his child’s speech and language development was impacted and Mr X has also been caused frustration and distress.

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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. We cannot question whether a council’s decision is right or wrong simply because the complainant disagrees with it. We must consider whether there was fault in the way the decision was reached. (Local Government Act 1974, section 34(3), 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 Tribunal in this decision statement.
6. The courts have established that if someone has appealed to the Tribunal, the law says we cannot investigate any matter which was part of, was connected to, or could have been part of, the appeal to the Tribunal. (R (on application of Milburn) v Local Government and Social Care Ombudsman [2023] EWCA Civ 207)
7. This means that if a child or young person is not attending school, and we decide the reason for non-attendance is linked to, or is a consequence of, a parent or young person’s disagreement about the special educational provision or the educational placement in the EHC Plan, we cannot investigate a lack of special educational provision, or alternative educational provision.
8. The period we cannot investigate starts from the date the appealable decision is made and given to the parents or young person. If the parent or young person goes on to appeal then the period that we cannot investigate ends when the Tribunal comes to its decision, or if the appeal is withdrawn or conceded. We would not usually look at the period while any changes to the EHC Plan are finalised, so long as the council follows the statutory timescales to make those amendments.
9. 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)
10. 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

11. I have investigated events from when they began, with the annual review of 26 March 2024.
12. My investigation into any missed speech and language provision ends on 2 August 2024. From this date a final EHC Plan was issued which carried a right of appeal to the SEND Tribunal. After this date, any disagreement over the amount of speech and language therapy Z should receive was appealable to the SEND Tribunal. Therefore, for the reasons set out in paragraphs 5-8, I cannot investigate Mr X’s complaint about any missed speech and language provision from 2 August.
13. I have investigated other issues within this complaint that were not appealable to a Tribunal, up until Mr X complained to the Ombudsman in March 2025.

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How I considered this complaint

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

EHC Plans

16. 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. 
17. The EHC Plan is set out in sections which include: 

• Section B: Special educational needs.  
• Section C: Health needs related to the child or young person’s SEN.
• Section F: The special educational provision needed by the child or the young person. 

18. 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).
19. 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)
20. 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). 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)  

Complaints policy, London Borough of Newham

21. The Council aims to acknowledge stage one complaints within five working days and respond within ten working days of its acknowledgement.
22. For complex complaints it says on rare occasions it will respond in an additional ten working days. It says it will let complainants know in its stage one complaint response of their right to escalate to stage two of the procedure if they are dissatisfied.
23. The Council aims to acknowledge stage two complaints within five working days and respond within twenty working days of its acknowledgement. It says it will signpost complainants to the Ombudsman if they remain dissatisfied at the final stage.

What happened

24. Mr X’s child, Z, has special educational needs and has an EHC Plan.
25. Z’s last in force EHC Plan from 2023 said Z should receive one hour per week of speech and language therapy. It said these strategies should also be incorporated into their learning by teaching assistants at the school.
26. Z’s last speech and language session was held on 26 March 2024 and after that time, Z’s speech and language therapist ceased the sessions due to a change in their job role.
27. An annual review of Z’s EHC Plan was held on the same day. At the review, the professionals involved recommended that Z’s speech and language provision be reduced due to the progress Z had made.
28. At the annual review, they recommended Z should receive half of their yearly sessions directly from a speech and language therapist and half of their yearly sessions ‘indirectly’ through strategies being incorporated by Z’s education staff and their parents.
29. Z stopped receiving speech and language therapy sessions from 26 March 2024 as there was a delay arranging a new speech and language therapist after the previous therapist changed roles.
30. In early May 2024 Z’s new speech and language therapist emailed Mr X to introduce themselves as they were due to take over from Z’s former therapist. They said they planned to visit Z at the school on 10 May.
31. Mr X responded to this email on 15 May 2024 and asked the speech and language therapist not to visit his child until further notice. Z continued not to receive any speech and language therapy sessions.
32. The speech and language therapist wrote to Mr X and said they were planning to work with Z in line with the latest goals set out in the March 2024 annual review. Mr X responded in early June. He said those were still only recommendations put forward at annual review and Z’s EHC Plan had not yet been finalised. He said Z was until then, entitled to receive the speech and language provision as set out in their last in force EHC Plan.
33. The speech and language therapy service contacted the Council and Mr X in mid-June 2024. The service said Mr X had withdrawn his consent for them to work with Z and so they had been unable to deliver the provision. The service said to both Mr X and the Council, that if Mr X agreed to the service working with Z, they would reinstate the provision immediately. Regarding the sessions that had been missed since 26 March 2024, the service said it could deliver these as catch-up sessions.
34. Mr X complained to the Council. He said Z had not received the speech and language provision they were entitled to since March 2024. Mr X said he did not withdraw consent for the speech and language service to deliver the provision, this was only a disagreement about the type of speech and language provision being put forward.
35. The Council provided a response seven weeks later but this was not a formal complaint response. It did not tell him what stage of the complaints process it was investigating or advise him of his right to escalate to the next stage of the complaints process if he was unhappy. In this response the Council said it had issued a final EHC Plan in May 2024 and if Mr X was dissatisfied he could appeal this to the SEND Tribunal.
36. We asked the Council to provide copies of all final EHC Plans issued in 2024 and it did not evidence that it had sent a Plan in May 2024. A later final EHC Plan issued for Z in 2025 stated that the only EHC Plans issued for Z in that year were on 2 August 2024 and 4 October 2024, so this appeared to be incorrect information in the Council’s complaint response.
37. The Council issued a final EHC Plan for Z in August 2024 which set out the reduced amount of direct speech and language provision in Section F. Mr X disagreed with this change to the speech and language provision and appealed the Plan to the SEND Tribunal.
38. Mr X complained to the Council again on 2 October 2024. He said the Council failed to ensure Z received the speech and language provision in their Plan. He asked for financial compensation to be paid so he could fund the missed sessions himself. Mr X also complained about the Council’s delayed complaint handling.
39. The Council did not provide a response to this complaint and in March 2025 Mr X complained directly to the Ombudsman. We asked the Council if it had responded to Mr X’s October 2024 complaint. It replied that Mr X had appealed the matter to the SEND Tribunal. We decided the Council had sufficient notice of the complaint and we investigated without a final complaint response.
40. Mr X’s tribunal hearing is scheduled for 2026.

My findings

Speech and language provision reduced too soon

41. Mr X is correct that if the Council had reduced the amount of direct speech and language provision Z received, before this reduced provision had been set out in an amended, final EHC Plan, this would have been fault. Until another final EHC Plan is issued, the child or young person is entitled to receive the provision as set out in their last in force EHC Plan.
42. However we cannot know whether this direct speech and language provision would have been reduced sooner than it should have been, as Mr X declined for his child to receive their speech and language provision from the new therapist from May 2024 onwards. The new speech and language therapist did say in their email that they planned to meet with Z to “work on the latest outcomes and goals” and referred Mr X to the recent annual review. However I do not consider that this is sufficient to show the Council was at fault in the way Mr X described.

Missed speech and language therapy sessions

43. Z missed out on speech and language therapy sessions in 2024 because of changes to provision. Z stopped receiving their scheduled speech and language sessions from early April 2024 and the service did not arrange another session until 10 May 2024.
44. In this instance the sessions were missed because the speech and language service did not arrange replacement provision quickly enough after Z’s former therapist changed roles. The responsibility to ensure section F provision is received is ultimately the Council’s and so the Council was at fault for failing to ensure these sessions took place. However I do not consider that this fault by the Council led to the claimed injustice and I set this out in more detail below.
45. From 10 May 2024 until my investigation ends in early August 2024, Z missed out on their speech and language provision because Mr X declined for the speech and language service to work with Z. The service said in June 2024 that if Mr X agreed to work with them, they would reinstate provision immediately and would deliver the sessions that Z had missed before May 2024. This was an opportunity for the injustice caused by the Council’s earlier fault to have been resolved through catch up sessions but Mr X declined this. I therefore do not find that the injustice of missed provision was caused by Council fault.

Delayed EHC Plan

46. The Council had twelve weeks from the date of the 26 March 2024 annual review to issue Z’s final, amended EHC Plan. The Council did not issue this Plan until 2 August 2024, taking a total of eighteen weeks and three days. This delay was fault by the Council which caused Mr X frustration and delayed his right of appeal to the SEND Tribunal.

Complaint handling

47. The Council’s complaint handling was poor in this case. It delayed responding to Mr X’s complaint at stage one and its response was not issued in line with its complaints policy. It did not say whether it was a complaint response, or inform Mr X of his right to escalate his complaint to the next stage. At stage two, the Council failed to respond to Mr X’s complaint at all. The Council was at fault for its complaint handling and this fault caused Mr X avoidable frustration.
48. In response to another Ombudsman investigation where fault was found with the Council’s complaint handling, this Council is reporting back to the Ombudsman on improvements it is making to prevent future complaint handling delays. As this service improvement was not yet underway at the time of the events Mr X complained of, I have not repeated the same recommendation here.

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Action

49. Within one month of the date of the final decision, the Council has agreed to apologise to Mr X for the frustration and delayed appeal rights caused by the Council’s faults in this case.
50. We publish Guidance on Remedies which sets out, in section 3.2, our expectations for how organisations should apologise effectively to remedy injustice. The organisation should consider this guidance in making the apology I have recommended.
51. The Council should provide us with evidence it has complied with the above actions.

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Decision

52. I found fault causing injustice and the Council has agreed action to remedy injustice.

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Investigator's decision on behalf of the Ombudsman