Summary: There was fault by the Council. It delayed carrying out an annual review of Y’s Education, Health and Care Plan and, in submitting the case to the funding panel. It also failed to carry our regular reviews of Y’s Child in Need Plan. There was poor communication and delay in complaint handling. The Council has apologised and offered a suitable payment to reflect Ms X’s avoidable distress, time and trouble and delay in appeal rights.

The complaint

1. Ms X complained the Council:
1. Did not review her child Y’s Child in Need Plan.
2. Did not carry out an annual review of Y’s Education, Health and Care Plan (EHC Plan)
3. Did not secure the special educational and social care provision on the EHC Plan
4. Did not provide an appropriate remedy in response to her complaint.
2. Ms X said this caused Y a loss of educational and social care provision, avoidable distress and meant she paid for an advocate to support her.

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The Ombudsman’s role and powers

3. 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)
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. 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. Ms X complained to us in March 2025. My investigation includes only March 2024 to March 2025. Events before March 2024 are late and there is no good reason for Ms X’s delay complaining to us. Where I have mentioned earlier or later events, it is for background only.

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How I considered this complaint

8. I considered evidence provided by Ms X and the Council as well as relevant law, policy and guidance.
9. 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

Relevant law and guidance

10. Councils must safeguard and promote the welfare of children within their area who are in need. A child is in need if they are disabled. (Children Act 1989, section 17)
11. When a council assesses a child as being in need, it supports them through a child in need plan (CIN plan). This should set clear, measurable outcomes for the child and expectations for their parent. The CIN plan should set out the services to be delivered and what actions are to be undertaken, by whom and for what purpose. (Working Together to Safeguard Children 2023, paragraph 177)
12. Councils should review CIN plans regularly to see if enough progress has been made to meet the child’s needs. Review points should be agreed with other practitioners supporting the child and focus on any change in their welfare. (Working Together to Safeguard Children 2023, paragraph 181)
13. 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 which include: 

• Section B: Special educational needs.  
• Section D: Social care needs related to the child or young person’s SEN
• Section F: The special educational provision (SEP) needed by the child or the young person. 
• Section H1: The social care provision which must be made for the child or young person
• Section I: The name and/or type of educational placement 
• Section J: Details of any personal budget required to fund the provision in the EHC Plan.

14. A Personal Budget (PB) is the amount of money the council has identified which is needed to secure the provision in a child or young person’s EHC Plan. Councils can deliver a PB is through direct payments. These are cash payments made to the child’s parent or the young person so they can commission the provision in the EHC Plan themselves.
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 2014).
16. If a council decides there is no suitable educational setting for a child to receive special educational provision on their EHC Plan, it provides an education package at home or another non-school setting. (This type of educational provision is called EOTAS or EOTIS.) (Section 61, Children and Families Act 2014)
17. The council must arrange for the EHC Plan to be reviewed at least once a year to make sure it is up to date. The council must complete the review within 12 months of the first EHC Plan and within 12 months of any later reviews. The annual review begins with consulting the child’s parents or the young person and the educational placement. A review meeting must then take place. The process is only complete when the council issues its decision to amend, maintain or discontinue the EHC Plan. This must happen within four weeks of the meeting. (Section 20(10) Special Educational Needs and Disability Regulations 2014 and SEN Code paragraph 9.176) 

What happened

Background: events before the LGSCO investigation timeframe

18. Y has a long-term health condition causing exhaustion. He has an EHC Plan and is a child in need with support provided through a CIN plan. Y has not attended school for a long time and receives EOTAS.
19. The EHC Plan in place in February 2024 is dated May 2022. Section J of the Plan set out the agreed PB:
• 12 hours a week of tuition
• 13 hours a week of additional Teaching Assistant (TA) support
• 5 hours a week of social care funding for an adult to provide support for Y to go out and access the community independent of Ms X.

2024

20. Ms X’s advocate complained to the Council in February 2024 about the matters she has raised with us. The complaint letter said Y had taken a step back recently and was now largely asleep. The Council didn’t respond to the complaint for several months.
21. There was a CIN meeting in June 2024. The minutes of the meeting noted:
• A temporary education funding plan for Y had been agreed to cover to the end of the Summer term. The SEND case officer nearly had the EHC Plan finalised but was waiting for some important evidence.
• The SEND case officer would obtain evidence from Y’s psychologist.
• The new social worker would refer Y’s case to the tripartite funding panel (made up of senior managers from children’s social care, education and health which have authority to agree funding for EHC Plans.)
• Attendees would meet again ‘in a few weeks.’
22. The CIN plan for Y included the following action:
• Referrals were to be made to the funding panel to request a specialist and bespoke service to meet Y’s mental health needs for a service that supported Y’s carers and mother to deliver recommended therapies.
• Social care direct payment was to remain in place.
• Y’s EHC Plan would be amended by August 2024 to include tuition, a teaching assistant, horse-riding, cold water therapy and a laptop
23. Y’s psychologist wrote to Y’s SEN case officer in June recommending equipment to support Y’s mental health /sensory needs including ice baths, wild water swimming as often as possible, riding and sensory equipment.
24. The Council issued a draft EHC Plan in July 2024. It set out a proposed educational package funded by a PB/direct payment of:
• On-line mentoring: two hours
• Tuition: 10 hours
• Teaching Assistant: 17 hours
• Horse riding: twice a week
• Coldwater swimming: once a week
• Laptop and software
• Zoo membership and sensory equipment.

Social care provision was 20 hours a week during term-time.

25. The Council’s first response to the complaint in August said:
• The allocated social worker was on leave when Ms X first complained and had since left the Council. Officers thought the social worker had told Ms X he was going to be absent. As a result of his extended absence, normal CIN procedures were not followed; the CIN plan was not reviewed and no alternative social worker support through the duty social worker was offered. As a result, the team manager contacted Ms X and held an education/CIN meeting in May to agree a way forward
• A draft amended EHC Plan was agreed in May 2024, subject to approval at panel. And there was a temporary increase in DPs.
• Some of the health elements to the EHC Plan were being explored
• Y’s EHC Plan had now been finalised and his PB was in place. A laptop had been provided.
26. Ms X’s advocate added further issues to Ms X’s complaint at the second stage of the Council’s complaint procedure in September 2024. These included delay in submitting Y’s case to the funding panel to agree specialist equipment, not releasing the funds for the direct payment/PB and poor communication with three different social workers in a short timeframe.

2025

27. The Council’s second response to the complaint in January 2025 said ‘we uphold the findings that relate to Children’s Services and SEND and believe the findings to be fair’. The Council offered £150 for Ms X’s time and trouble progressing the complaint and £400 for the avoidable distress to her family.
28. Unhappy with the Council’s final response, Ms X complained to the LGSCO in March 2025.

Direct payment schedule

29. The Council provided me with a schedule of direct payments it made for Y of £35,500 for the academic year 2024 to 2025. Payments were for:
• 10 hours a week of tuition (can be used over 52 weeks)
• 17 hours a week Teaching Assistant support
• Horse riding 2 hours a week
• 1 weekly session of cold-water swimming
• Seating, sensory diet equipment, zoo membership, laptop software and damage cover.

Information from Ms X

30. Ms X told me Y had been in a coma-like state for over 10 months. She said he was only awake for a couple of hours a day. She went on to say the main issue is that Y is not getting the health therapies he needs to stay awake long enough to access education. Ms X said social workers kept leaving and they had all promised to refer Y’s case to the tripartite funding panel to request funding for health treatment and/or therapies. (The tripartite funding panel is made up of social care, health and education managers to discuss bespoke funding requests for complex cases.)

Events since Ms X’s complaint

31. There was a CIN meeting in May 2025. Ms X, her advocate, health professionals, Y’s social worker and their manager attended. Attendees provided updates on their involvement with Y. Agreed actions were:
• The EHC Plan was to be amended and finalised to include tuition hours, teaching assistant hours, horse riding therapy, cold water therapy and a laptop. By the end of June 2025
• Funding appeal to be made to health, education and local authority via tri-partite panel
32. The Council issued Y’s final amended EHC Plan at the start of May 2025. Y’s PB in Section J is:
• Two hours a week of on-line mentoring
• 10 hours a week of tuition in Maths English and media
• 17 hours a week of teaching assistant support
• Two sessions a week of horse riding
• Cold water swimming once a week plus mileage.
• Laptop, damage cover, software, zoo membership, sensory equipment
• Direct payment for social care: 20 hours a week

Information from the Council about events postdating the timeframe of my investigation

33. The Council told me:
• The social worker did submit a case to the panel. There was a professionals meeting to discuss the request which took place in May 2025
• Ms X feels services should fund an ice bath for Y, as it is her experience and also a previous private recommendation that this will support his condition. Whilst we do not dispute this, it is not recommended under NHS guidelines and is not a typical treatment procedure for his condition, especially as he is a child. The panel therefore denied the request as a result and due to concerns regarding the risks associated and the need for clinical supervision which the NHS could not provide.
• There was poor communication from the LA at the time and the Council apologised for this. It could not provide evidence of Ms X’s communication, but it accepted she did persistently contact the Council and request for issues to be resolved.  There were errors with the account and paperwork connected to the account. We communicated with the carers centre to get this resolved and any owed backpay was sent. Most of the issues were resolved in 2024.

Findings

Did not review Y’s Child in Need Plan.

34. Working Together requires regular review of CIN plans. The Council has accepted these did not take place and this was fault causing avoidable distress and uncertainty about whether the arrangements in the Plan were suitable or needed to be changed.

Did not carry out an annual review of Y’s Education, Health and Care Plan (EHC Plan)

35. The Council should have ensured an annual review of Y’s EHC Plan took place and was completed in May 2024. This was because his most recent Plan was May 2022.
36. The Council issued an amended final EHC Plan in May 2025, two months after Ms X complained to us. This was a delay of a year and was fault causing avoidable frustration, uncertainty about provision and a delay in appeal rights.
37. The amended final Plan of May 2025 has given Ms X a right of appeal to the SEND Tribunal. It is reasonable for her to use or have used appeal rights if she is unhappy with the therapeutic, health, educational or social care provision in this plan.

Did not secure the special educational and social care provision on the EHC Plan

38. The Council’s schedule of direct payments for the period I am investigating indicates it provided a PB (through a direct payment) which was in line with the amended EHC Plan which it issued in May 2025. So although the final Plan was late as I have set out in the previous section, I cannot conclude Y lost out on any educational or social care provision. In addition, information from Ms X is that Y has been too unwell to access provision which has been made available through the direct payment. So I do not conclude he has suffered injustice requiring a remedy.

Did not provide an appropriate remedy in response to her complaint.

39. There was several months of delay in responding to Ms X’s complaint at each stage of the complaint process which was fault causing avoidable distress and time and trouble. The Council also accepts Ms X contacted it repeatedly and it did not respond. This was a further fault.
40. As I have set out above there was also delay in the process of completing an annual review, failure to carry out regular reviews of the CIN plan. I find there was also delay of almost a year (between June 2024 and May 2025) submitting Y’s case to the tripartite funding panel to consider funding requests which the Council and NHS might make available for Y’s health, education and social care needs. There is no loss of service flowing from the delay though because the panel declined to fund the specialist provision Ms X sought.
41. The Council has apologised and offered a Ms X a symbolic payment of £550 for her time and trouble and distress. This is in line with our Guidance on remedies and is an appropriate remedy.

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Decision

42. I find fault causing injustice. The Council has already taken appropriate action to remedy the injustice.

Investigator’s decision on behalf of the Ombudsman

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Investigator's decision on behalf of the Ombudsman