Summary: Mrs X complained the Council delayed completing her child, Y’s Education, Health and Care (EHC) needs assessment. She further complained the Council failed to ensure Y received suitable alternative provision since January 2025. The Council delayed completing Y’s EHC needs assessment by 14 months, caused by a delay in obtaining Educational Psychology (EP) advice. The Council also failed to keep oversight of Y’s education when it ended Y’s alternative provision in January 2025. The Council agreed to apologise to Y and Mrs X and make a payment to acknowledge the distress and uncertainty this caused them both.

The complaint

1. Mrs X complained the Council delayed completing her child, Y’s EHC needs assessment which caused a delay in it deciding whether to issue Y with a Plan.
2. Mrs X also complained the Council failed to ensure Y received suitable alternative provision since January 2025.
3. Mrs X said Y fell behind in education and it caused distress and uncertainty.

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The Ombudsman’s role and powers

4. We investigate complaints of injustice caused by ‘maladministration’ and ‘service failure’. I have used the word fault to refer to these. Service failure can happen when an organisation fails to provide a service as it should have done because of circumstances outside its control. We do not need to show any blame, intent, flawed policy or process, or bad faith by an organisation to say service failure (fault) has occurred. (Local Government Act 1974, sections 26(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(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 Mrs X and the Council as well as relevant law, policy and guidance.
8. 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

Relevant law and guidance

Education, Health and Care Plans

9. 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.

Timescales and process for EHC assessment 

10. Statutory guidance ‘Special educational needs and disability code of practice: 0 to 25 years’ (‘the Code’) sets out the process for carrying out EHC assessments and producing EHC Plans. The guidance is based on the Children and Families Act 2014 and the SEN Regulations 2014. It says the following: 

• Where the council receives a request for an EHC needs assessment it must decide whether to agree to the assessment and send its decision to the parent of the child or the young person within six weeks. 
• The process of assessing needs and developing EHC Plans “must be carried out in a timely manner”. Steps must be completed as soon as practicable. 
• If the council goes on to carry out an assessment, it must decide whether to issue an EHC Plan or refuse to issue a Plan within 16 weeks.
• If the council goes on to issue an EHC Plan, the whole process from the point when an assessment is requested until the final EHC Plan is issued must take no more than 20 weeks (unless certain specific circumstances apply);  

11. As part of the EHC assessment councils must gather advice from relevant professionals (SEND 2014 Regulations, Regulation 6(1)). This includes advice and information from an Educational Psychologist (EP). It must also seek advice and information from other professionals requested by the parent, if it considers it is reasonable to do so. Those consulted have six weeks to provide the advice.
12. The First-tier Tribunal (Special Educational Needs and Disability) considers appeals against council decisions regarding special educational needs. We refer to it as the SEND Tribunal in this decision statement. The appeal can be against a decision not to assess, issue or amend an EHC Plan or about the content of the final EHC Plan

Alternative education

13. Councils must arrange suitable education at school or elsewhere for pupils who are out of school because of exclusion, illness or for other reasons, if they would not receive suitable education without such arrangements. [The provision generally should be full-time unless it is not in the child’s interests.] (Education Act 1996, section 19). We refer to this as section 19 or alternative education provision.
14. This applies to all children of compulsory school age living in the local council area, whether or not they are on the roll of a school. (Statutory guidance ‘Alternative Provision’ January 2013)
15. Where councils arrange for schools or other bodies to carry out their functions on their behalf, the council remains responsible. Therefore, councils should retain oversight and control to ensure their duties are properly fulfilled.
16. Councils also have some flexibility with regard to the time taken to set up alternative provision. However, they must make provision from the sixth day in exclusion cases, and they should do so in medical cases where it is clear the absence is for more than 15 school days.

What happened

17. Mrs X has a child, Y with special educational needs (SEN). In February 2024 Y stopped attending their mainstream school due to anxiety.

EHC needs assessment and Plan

18. In March 2024, Mrs X asked the Council to carry out an Education, Health and Care (EHC) needs assessment for Y. The Council declined to carry out the assessment stating it believed Y’s needs could be met by accessing resources available in a mainstream educational setting. Mrs X appealed the decision to the Council’s resource panel. The Council declined to carry out the assessment a second time when Mrs X provided further information before agreeing to assess Y at the end of May 2024.
19. Mrs X complained to the Council in December about delays in completing Y’s EHC needs assessment.
20. In April 2025, the Council issued its complaint response to Mrs X. It explained the delay was due to shortages in Educational Psychologists (EP) and its ongoing struggle to recruit EPs. It said that EHC needs assessment requests were at an all-time high causing a backlog in allocating EPs and it would allocate an EP to provide advice as soon as one became available.
21. Mrs X remained dissatisfied with the Council’s response and complained to us about the ongoing delay.
22. Following our enquiries the Council informed us it allocated an EP in early September 2025 and it was expecting the report back imminently.
23. The Council to date has not made a decision whether it would issue Y with an EHC Plan.

Y’s alternative provision

24. In April 2024 the Council’s Education Access team was informed Y stopped attending school. The same month the Council set up a meeting in school discussing Y’s absence from school and its duty to provide alternative provision.
25. In May the Council sourced a tuition provider which started delivering 15 hours per week or three hours of daily home tuition for Y at the family home from mid June 2024 onwards.
26. Also in June, the Council allocated one of its Engagement Facilitators—a professional who works to improve communication and coordination between families, schools, and services to support Y’s participation in tuition and to liaise with the school and tuition provider to coordinate further support
27. The Council held review meetings in July, September and November.
28. In the September meeting the Council recorded Y’s tuition started being held at school for part of their daily provision.
29. In the November meeting it was recorded all of Y’s session took now place in the school and Y was able to attend a school trip in October.
30. In December the Council advised Mrs X to ensure she had updated medical evidence ahead of the next review meeting in January 2025. The Education Access team at the Council also tasked Y’s Engagement Facilitator to support the family to engage with the current plan to reintegrate Y back into the school. It noted it considered moving towards closing Y’s case as Y was able to sustain regular school attendance for her tuitions.
31. In the review meeting in January the Council noted Mrs X had not provided new medical evidence that Y was unable to attend school. Mrs X stated she requested an updated medical form from the GP, but they failed to provide it in time for the meeting. Mrs X also told us it became more difficult to obtain this medical evidence as Y’s condition remained unchanged.
32. During the meeting, it was noted that Y was attending school on a reduced timetable. There had been little improvement in Y’s engagement with the provision, and it was agreed that removing the pressure to attend tuition sessions may help Y engage more effectively in school with the support of the Engagement Facilitator.
33. At the meeting, the Council decided to close Y’s case. However, it was agreed that Y would continue to receive tuition until the end of January. The Engagement Facilitator said it would keep Y’s plan under review to ensure progress was made and that appropriate support was in place to help Y transition to secondary school later in the year.
34. After receiving the minutes from the review meeting, Mrs X contacted the Council, stating she had not been aware this meeting was intended to be Y’s final review and that tuition would cease. She requested that her objection to closing Y’s case be formally recorded. The Council advised that all parties had been informed that, should Y stop attending school again, a new referral could be made to the Council’s Education Access Team. The Council also noted that no further evidence was provided by Mrs X since then.
35. Mrs X remained dissatisfied with the Council’s response and complained to us in April, stating that Y had not received any alternative provision since January 2025.
36. Mrs X told us Y started attending a mainstream secondary school in September 2025.

My findings

EHC needs assessment delays

37. We expect councils to follow statutory timescales set out in the law and the Code. We are likely to find fault where there are significant breaches of those timescales.
38. Following the Council’s decision to carry out the assessment in late May 2024 it should have made the decision whether to issue a Plan by 6 August 2024. That being the case the Council should have issued Y’s final EHC Plan by 3 September 2024.
39. The EP report should have been available to the Council by early July 2024 for it to have met the early August deadline in time to make a decision. At the time of writing in October 2025 there is a 14-month delay in deciding whether to issue Y with an EHC Plan caused by the significant delay in obtaining EP advice. That is fault. This delay caused Mrs X uncertainty and avoidable distress and delayed her appeal rights to the SEND tribunal.
40. The Council allocated an EP in early September 2025. The Council has taken over 18 months to assess Y and has still not decided whether to issue Y with a Plan. This delay is due to obtaining EP advice and a backlog of cases. By comparison, the statutory timeframe for issuing a final plan is 20 weeks.
41. The Council has an ongoing SEND improvement plan which is addressing both EP shortage and how it considers its Section 19 duties. We will continue to monitor progress of this through our casework and so, further service improvement recommendations are not required at this time.

Y’s alternative provision

42. The Council became aware Y stopped attending school in April 2024.
43. It held a meeting the same month to consider whether to provide alternative provision for Y. The Council agreed that alternative provision was needed. Y started to receive home tuitions in mid-June.
44. With tuition in place the evidence shows that up until January 2025 the Council regularly reviewed Y’s alternative provision, holding meetings and liaising regularly with the Engagement Facilitator who it allocated to help Y access education. The Council monitored Y’s attendance and engagement as tuition transitioned from home to school and reminded Mrs X to provide medical evidence of Y’s inability to attend school. In January 2025, after a review, the Council decided to end the alternative provision, believing Y would benefit more from school-based learning with the Facilitator’s support. However, it agreed to revisit this decision if the Facilitator raised concerns or if Mrs X submitted new medical evidence showing Y could not attend school.
45. The Council left it open for Mrs X to provide new medical evidence or for the Engagement Facilitator to raise any concerns, however the Council itself had a duty to maintain oversight of Y. There is no evidence of any Council oversight in the period between January 2025 until July 2025. That was fault. It leaves uncertainty around whether Y could have received support during that period had oversight taken place.
46. The Council has an ongoing SEND improvement plan which is addressing both EP shortage and how it considers its Section 19 duties. We will continue to monitor progress of this through our casework and so, further service improvement recommendations are not required at this time.

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Actions

47. Within one month of the final decision, the Council agreed to take the following action:
1. Apologise to Mrs X and pay her £600 to recognise the impact on Y’s education resulting from the Council’s lack of oversight between January and July 2025. We publish guidance on remedies which sets out our expectations for how organisations should apologise effectively to remedy injustice. The Council should consider this guidance in making the apology I have recommended.
2. Pay Mrs X £1,400 to acknowledge the distress and uncertainty caused by the delay in deciding whether to issue Y an EHC Plan due to the delay in obtaining EP advice up until October 2025.
3. Continue to pay Mrs X £100 a month from November 2025 onwards to the point the Council issues its decision whether it will issue Y with an EHC Plan.
48. The Council should provide us with evidence it has complied with the above actions.

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Decision

49. I have found fault and made recommendations for the Council to remedy the injustice caused by the fault.

Investigator’s decision on behalf of the Ombudsman

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Investigator's decision on behalf of the Ombudsman