Summary: We will not investigate this complaint about the Council’s decision not to make alternative educational provision for the complainant’s daughter. This is because there is insufficient evidence of fault on the Council’s part to warrant investigation.

The complaint

1. The complainant, Mrs X, complains that the Council is at fault in declining to make alternative educational provision for her daughter while she is unable to attend school.

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The Ombudsman’s role and powers

2. We investigate complaints about ‘maladministration’ and ‘service failure’, which we call ‘fault’. We must also consider whether any fault has had an adverse effect on the person making the complaint, which we call ‘injustice’. We provide a free service, but must use public money carefully. We do not start an investigation if we decide the tests set out in our Assessment Code are not met. (Local Government Act 1974, section 24A(6), as amended)

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How I considered this complaint

3. I considered information provided by the complainant and the Council.
4. I considered the Ombudsman’s Assessment Code.

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My assessment

5. Mrs X’s daughter has special educational needs and an Education Health and Care plan. Mrs X says her daughter has been unable to attend school since December 2024 because she cannot cope with a mainstream setting due to her autism. In Mrs X’s view, her daughter’s situation engages the Council’s duty under section 19 of the Education Act 1996, and the Council must make alternative provision.
6. The Council has declined Mrs X’s request for alternative provision. She contends therefore that it is failing to discharge its section 19 duty.
7. It is not for the Ombudsman to determine whether the section 19 duty is engaged. That is for the Council. In its response to Mrs X’s complaint, the Council has set out that it does not agree that the offer available to Mrs X’s daughter is inappropriate, or that successful reintegration cannot take place. That being the case, it does not agree that the duty to make alternative provision is engaged.
8. Mrs X disagrees with the Council’s position. But that does not mean it amounts to fault. The basis on which the Council has reached its view is properly set out in the complaint response. Its position is defensible and there is no evidence of fault in the way the decision was made. Without evidence of fault in the way the Council made its decision the Ombudsman cannot criticise its merits or intervene to substitute an alternative view.

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Final decision

9. We will not investigate Mrs X’s complaint because there is insufficient evidence of fault on the Council’s part.

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Investigator's decision on behalf of the Ombudsman