Summary: Mrs X complained about the Council’s failure to make timely direct payments to her, for her child B’s educational provision. She also complained about the Council’s failure to conduct an Education, Health and Care Plan annual review. Mrs X said the Council failed to deal with her complaint properly. We found the Council was at fault. Mrs X suffered undue frustration and uncertainty because of this. The Council has agreed to apologise to Mrs X, make a symbolic payment to her and improve its services.

The complaint

1. Mrs X complained the Council routinely delayed making direct payments to her, to secure the education other than at school (EOTAS) provision outlined in her child, B’s, Education, Health and Care (EHC) Plan.
2. Mrs X complained about failure to carry out an annual review of B’s EHC Plan in 2024. She also complained about the Council’s complaint handling.
3. The stress caused by lack of routine direct payments has had a great impact on Mrs X. She is worried about disruption to B’s education should she be unable to pay providers and the impact on her paid employment if she has to care for B during the day.

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The Ombudsman’s role and powers

4. The First-tier Tribunal (Special Educational Needs and Disability) considers appeals against council decisions about special educational needs. We refer to it as the Tribunal in this decision statement.
5. Under our information sharing agreement, we will share this decision with the Office for Standards in Education, Children’s Services and Skills (Ofsted).
6. 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 future we may suggest a remedy. (Local Government Act 1974, sections 26(1) and 26A(1), as amended)
7. Section 26D of the Local Government Act 1974 gives us the power to investigate matters coming to our attention during an investigation if we think a member of the public has suffered an injustice as a result. 
8. 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)

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What I have and have not investigated

9. Mrs X complained to the Ombudsman in April 2025. The Council made its final complaint response to Mrs X in March 2025.
10. Actions of the Council have not resolved the complaint points. The issues Mrs X continues to experience, are those she originally complained about.
11. I have therefore considered matters from April 2024 until November 2025.

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How I considered this complaint

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

Law and guidance

14. Section 61 of the Children and Families Act allows councils to arrange for special educational provision to be made otherwise than in a school. We refer to this as EOTAS in this decision statement.
15. 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. 
16. 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) 
17. If the council decides not to amend an EHC Plan or decides to cease to maintain it, it must inform the child’s parents or the young person of their right to appeal the decision to the tribunal.
18. Where the council proposes to amend an EHC Plan, the law says it must send the child’s parent or the young person a copy of the existing (non-amended) Plan and an accompanying notice providing details of the proposed amendments, including copies of any evidence to support the proposed changes. (Section 22(2) Special Educational Needs and Disability Regulations 2014 and SEN Code paragraph 9.194). Case law sets out this should happen within four weeks of the date of the review meeting. Case law also found councils must issue the final amended EHC Plan within a further eight weeks.
19. There is a right of appeal to the Tribunal against a council’s:

• decision not to carry out an EHC needs assessment or reassessment;
• decision that it is not necessary to issue a EHC Plan following an assessment;
• description of a child or young person’s SEN, the special educational provision specified, the school or placement or that no school or other placement is specified in their EHC Plan;
• amendment to these elements of an EHC Plan;
• decision not to amend an EHC Plan following a review or reassessment; and
• decision to cease to maintain an EHC Plan.

20. A Personal Budget is money the council has identified it needs to pay to secure the provision in a child or young person’s EHC Plan. One way that councils can deliver a Personal Budget 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.
21. A child’s parent or the young person has the right to request a Personal Budget when the council has completed an EHC needs assessment and confirmed it will prepare an EHC Plan. They may also request a Personal Budget during a statutory review of an existing EHC Plan.
22. The final allocation of a Personal Budget must be enough to secure the agreed provision named in the EHC Plan and must be set out as part of that provision.
23. The Care Quality Commission regulates all health and social care services in England.

What happened here

24. This is a list of key events relevant to the complaint being investigated. It is not a list of everything that happened.
25. B is a young man with autism spectrum disorder. B has had an EHC Plan in place for many years. In April 2023 Mrs X signed a direct payment agreement, with the Council. The agreement referred to payments being made every 4 weeks.
26. The last annual review of B’s EHC Plan took place in July 2023. B has an EHC Plan dated October 2023.
27. B receives education other than at school (EOTAS). The content is agreed in B’s EHC Plan.
28. Mrs X receives direct payments from another Council department (for different services) for B. Mrs X said these payments are made on time, and reliably.
29. During the period investigated Mrs X has not received consistent timely payments into B’s direct payment account, to allow her to pay education providers properly.
30. I have not listed every incident of failure to provide payments on time. Doing so would add unnecessary content to this decision. Evidence suggests the Council often failed to make routine payments. This is despite:
• Mrs X asking repeatedly for the Council to make payment of whole year provision, or termly provision,
• Mrs X making several complaints to the Council about the matter, and
• similar matters investigated by the Ombudsman some years previously.
31. In October 2024 Mrs X had to make (a small) payment herself to a provider to make sure B did not lose out on education. In October 2025 Mrs X had to make a payment of over £2,000 to a provider directly to make sure B did not lose out on education.
32. Mrs X is regularly forced to use payments from another Council department to pay for B’s education. This is because there is often not enough money in the direct payment account to pay for B’s education.

My findings

Direct payments

33. The Council failed, and has continued to fail, to deliver the direct payments to Mrs X in a timely manner. I find the Council to be at fault. Mrs X lives in constant uncertainty. Fault by the Council caused undue stress and frustration. Mrs X is anxious that providers will withdraw services, and that B will suffer as a result, if she cannot make payments.
34. Mrs X usually pays providers, using other funds available to B. This means B has not suffered an injustice because of fault by the Council. Provision has continued and Mrs X said B is doing well.
35. However, Mrs X suffers ongoing anxiety about whether the money she is using to fund the provision, will be covered by repayments made to her by the Council.
36. As part of this investigation, I asked the Council questions about its direct payment system.
37. The Council makes direct payments to 20 parents/carers who organise EOTAS for their children. In October the Council confirmed four payees were owed money from the previous academic year.
38. The Council explained the process in place for organising the direct payments. It said it involved multiple council departments, and there are multiple action points.
39. The direct payments team for the SEND department is a team of around 12 employees.
40. Oversight of direct payments is not maintained by an assigned caseworker. The Council said it is working on a position statement to share with local partners, and parents about this. It said EOTAS packages are assigned to a small specialist team.
41. The Council told us it is reviewing the current system, as part of a transformation programme. It identified the decision-making process needs clarity. It intends to streamline the process. This is welcomed by the Ombudsman.

EHC Plan annual review

42. The Council failed to conduct an annual review of B’s EHC Plan in 2024 and 2025.
43. The Council said this was because of “scheduling difficulties and limited availability” for both the family and the Council. Mrs X has not reported this to be the case.
44. The Council shared a copy of one email it sent to Mrs X in November 2024, about organising the annual review meeting. No other evidence shows efforts made by the Council to organise a review.
45. There is also no evidence to suggest Mrs X had any part in delaying matters at all, let alone by two years.
46. Mrs X provided evidence of frequent attempts to relay information to the Council. Evidence provided by the Council, as part of this investigation, did not reflect this.
47. Failure to review B’s EHC Plan in 2024, and in 2025, within the legal timeframes, was fault by the Council. B’s provision (and associated Personal Budget) has not been reviewed since July 2023. A child’s needs can change drastically in the space of two years. This fault also resulted in a loss of an appeal right for Mrs X, should she have wished to lodge an appeal with the SEND Tribunal.
48. We investigated several other complaints in the last 18 months where failure to complete annual review meetings was a key theme.
49. In April 2024 Ofsted and the Care Quality Commission carried out an Area SEND Inspection of the local area partnership.
50. The inspection showed children with special educational needs in the Council area have inconsistent experiences. The local area partnership was told to make improvements.
51. The report highlighted parents reporting issues with timeliness of EHC plan annual reviews, and the quality of information used to inform them.
52. As part of this investigation, we reviewed the Council SEN Strategy 2023 – 2026. The strategy highlighted the changes made to local government in the Council area, in 2023. It also noted the impact of the Health and Care Act 2022, which introduced integrated care systems.
53. The Council has five priorities for development, that align with the recommendations made in the Area SEND Inspection in 2024.
54. One of the actions for the Council was to introduce a digital EHC Plan system. The Council said this should improve information sharing, timeliness, quality of data and governance arrangements.
55. This may help the Council to fulfil the legal requirements of the annual review process. However, fault identified in this complaint, and others investigated by the Ombudsman suggests the Council needs to explore this issue further.
56. The Council responded to my formal enquiries in October 2025. It said it was working with Mrs X to organise an annual review.
57. At the end of November, the Council had still not organised a review.

Complaint handling

58. The Council has a corporate complaints and compliments policy. It has a two-stage complaint process in place.
59. Stage one is local resolution. The Council department most involved usually handles this. This means it is often the team being complained about.
60. Acknowledgement of the complaint should be made within 5 working days. The complaint response should be made within 15, sometimes 20 working days.
61. Mrs X complained the service manager directly involved in the matters complained of, made a response to her at stage one of the Councils complaint’s procedure.
62. The Council followed its internal policy and therefore we cannot question the result.
63. The Council accepted Mrs X’s stage one complaint 7 working days after it was made. It took the Council 56 working days to respond substantively. This was 36 working days longer than it should have taken. The Council was at fault for failing to deal with Mrs X’s complaint within the expected timeframes at stage one of its procedure. This delay caused further undue frustration for Mrs X.
64. Stage two of the complaints procedure is a formal investigation into what has happened. A Council officer / department not involved in the complaint handles this.
65. The Council should acknowledge complaints within 5 working days. The Council should contact the complainant within another 5 working days to agree the complaint points. The investigation should be completed within 20 working days, following that.
66. The policy explains the Council may not accept a complaint progresses to stage two. When this happens, it should explain why and signpost to the Ombudsman.
67. The Council told Mrs X it would not progress her complaint to stage two of its complaint procedure 23 working days after she asked it to.
68. It was the Council’s intent that Mrs X had the option to complain to the Ombudsman. It said further investigation would not resolve the complaint points. The Council was within its right to do this. It decided it had addressed every complaint point at stage one.
69. It signposted Mrs X to the Ombudsman. We would expect it to do this.
70. We are aware the Council is failing to manage complaints about education for children with special educational needs, as it should.
71. In another investigation conducted by the Ombudsman we made service improvement recommendations to address this issue. The Council determined key matters for improvement and produced an action plan.
72. In October 2025 it provided an update about its progress. The Council made 8 targeted actions to reduce a complaint backlog and develop the complaint handling system.
73. The Council now needs time to imbed the changes. We will check the effectiveness of its plan through the complaints we receive during the next 12 – 24 months.

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Action

74. To remedy the injustice to Mrs X from fault by the Council, within four weeks of a final decision, the Council has agreed to take the following action:
• apologise to Mrs X in line with our guidance on Making an Effective Apology. We publish guidance on remedies which sets out our expectations for how organisations should apologise effectively to remedy injustice. The organisation should consider this guidance in making the apology I have recommended in my findings,
• make a symbolic payment of £250 to Mrs X to recognise the avoidable frustration and uncertainty she experienced, and continues to experience, by fault of the Council, and
• (if it has not already done so) make sure the four payees who are owed money from the last academic year, are properly paid.
75. We have the power to make recommendations to remedy the injustice experienced by complainants and members of the public affected by fault we identify. (Local Government Act 1974 s 31(2B)).
76. Within 12 weeks of a final decision, the Council has agreed to take the following action:
• conduct a review to determine the amount of EHC Plan annual review meetings that are overdue, by more than 6 months,
• using this data, create an action plan to tackle the backlog. Identify clear lines of accountability for overseeing the action plan over the next 12 months, and
• (if it has not already done so) complete the (multi team) review of the system in place to deliver direct payments to parents/carers, and
• create an action plan to improve the process. Identify clear lines of accountability for overseeing the action plan over the next 12 months.
77. The Council will provide us with evidence it has complied with the above actions.

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Decision

78. I find fault causing injustice. The Council has agreed actions to remedy injustice.

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Investigator's decision on behalf of the Ombudsman