Summary: We will not investigate this complaint that the Council was at fault in withdrawing wellbeing support from the complainant’s daughter without notice. 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 was at fault in withdrawing her daughter’s wellbeing support without notice.

Back to top

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)

Back to top

How I considered this complaint

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

Back to top

My assessment

5. Mrs X’s daughter has special educational needs and an Education Health and Care (EHC) plan. She was supported by the Council’s interim tuition service while a school placement was identified. Mrs X’s complaint concerns the way the Council handled the transition between the interim provision and the school, which she believes was flawed.
6. Mrs X says that, immediately after the school placement was identified, the interim tuition service withdrew the wellbeing support her daughter had been receiving. She says that, at the point at which the support was withdrawn, the placement was not confirmed and was not, in any case, due to begin for several weeks. She says there was no prior notice of the withdrawal until the day the wellbeing officer was due to visit her daughter.
7. Mrs X says the withdrawal of the service had a negative impact on her daughter’s mental health and transition to the school. She wants the Council to apologise and offer her daughter compensation.
8. In response to Mrs X’s complaint, the Council has confirmed that its interim tuition service closed her daughter’s case when it was notified that a school had been named in her EHC plan. It has apologised for any distress or confusion the closure caused. It has said that, once the placement was named, the transition process became the responsibility of the education setting, as set out in the EHC plan. That being the case, there was no role for the interim tuition service from that point.
9. The Ombudsman will not investigate Mrs X’s complaint because there is insufficient evidence of fault on the Council’s part. The Council has set out why the interim tuition service’s involvement ceased when it did. The question for the Ombudsman is not whether the process could have been handled differently, or whether more notice could have been given. It is whether the Council’s actions amount to fault.
10. There is no evidence to suggest that the Council’s decision to cease the involvement of the interim tuition service was administratively or procedurally flawed. Rather, it appears that it was the appropriate course of action once a school was named in the EHC plan. It is not for the Ombudsman to criticise the Council’s actions without evidence that they amount to fault. There is insufficient evidence of fault and our intervention is not therefore warranted.

Back to top

Final decision

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

Back to top

Investigator's decision on behalf of the Ombudsman