Summary: Mrs X complained the Council delayed finalising her son’s Education, Health and Care plan. Based on current evidence, we have found the Council was at fault. It caused a delay of seven months. This likely meant her son missed out on some support that he needed. Mrs X herself also likely experienced inconvenience and distress and her right to appeal was frustrated. The Council will now take action to address their injustice.

The complaint

1. Mrs X complains the Council delayed finalising her son’s Education, Health and Care (EHC) Plan, which left him without timely access to appropriate education and support.
2. Mrs X says a safeguarding incident, which she believes could have been prevented if the EHC Plan had been in place, led to her son being out of education. She is also unhappy that his absence was recorded as unauthorised.
3. Mrs X is unhappy with the handling of her complaint, in particular the Council declining her request to escalate her complaint to Stage 2 of its process.

The Ombudsman’s role and powers

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. We do not start or continue an investigation if we decide any injustice is not significant enough to justify our involvement. (Local Government Act 1974, section 24A(6), as amended, section 34(B))
6. If there was no fault in how the organisation made its decision, we cannot question the outcome. (Local Government Act 1974, section 34(3), as amended)
7. 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)
8. 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

9. I considered evidence provided by Mrs X and the Council as well as relevant law, policy and guidance.
10. Mrs X and the Council had the opportunity to comment on my draft decision. I considered their comments before making my final decision.

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What I found

11. A child with special educational needs may have an education, health and care (EHC) plan. This document describes the arrangements which should be made to meet the child’s needs
12. 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 SEND 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.
13. The Council’s complaints policy says that before a complaint moves to Stage 2, it will be checked to see if it meets certain conditions. To go to the next stage, the person must give new and relevant information or raise something that makes the original decision seem questionable.

What happened

14. In November 2024, an annual review of Y’s EHC plan took place.
15. In February 2025, a safeguarding incident occurred at school. Mrs X believes this incident could likely have been prevented if a finalised EHC Plan had been in place. As a result, she chose not to send Y to school until she had the opportunity to discuss her concerns with the school. Y was out of school for six days.
16. Following the incident, Mrs X complained to the Council about the delay in finalising Y’s EHC Plan, which had not been completed within the statutory timeframe.
17. The Council responded in March 2025. It apologised for the delay and stated that the delay was due in part to waiting for additional information Mrs X wished to provide. To remedy the situation, it recommended that “the outcome of the review be formally notified as soon as practicable and without further delay.”
18. Mrs X asked to escalate her complaint, but the Council declined. It explained its reasons, stating it disagreed with her assessment of its response. The Council’s reply addressed each of her concerns in turn.
19. In May 2025, the Council sent an updated EHC Plan to Mrs X, but it was recalled before she had the opportunity to read or comment on it.
20. The Council said that the version issued in May was a final plan, but this was reopened in draft form in June 2025 and finalised in September 2025.

My findings

21. The statutory timescale for finalising an EHC Plan following an annual review is clear and non-negotiable. The Council should have issued Y’s final plan by the end of January 2025. The plan was finalised in September 2025, which was a delay of seven months.
22. The Council explained the reasons for the delay and gave reassurances to Mrs X that it would act without further delay. However, this does not alter the statutory duty or the injustice caused by the delay. While it was trying to work with Mrs X to agree the plan, the delay meant she could not use her right of appeal when she should have been able to.
23. It is likely that Y missed out on some of the support he needed because of the delay in finalising his EHC Plan. Mrs X also experienced inconvenience and frustration, including the time and effort spent pursuing a complaint with the Council and, subsequently, with us. I do not see anything wrong with how the Council made its decision to reject Mrs X’s stage 2 complaint. Even though it didn’t accept her request to move to Stage 2, it still gave her a response.
24. While the safeguarding incident was understandably distressing, Y was only out of school for six days. This means the resulting injustice is not significant enough on its own to warrant further investigation by us.

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Action

25. Within four weeks, the Council has agreed to:

• Write to Mrs X, apologising for the delay in issuing Y’s EHC plan. We publish guidance which sets out what we expect an effective apology to look like. The Council should consider this guidance when writing to Mrs X.

• Make a symbolic payment of £500 to Mrs X, on Y’s behalf, to recognise that its delay in finalising Y’s EHC plan likely caused him to lose some support over a seven-month period.

• Make a further symbolic payment of £250 to Mrs X to recognise that the delay also likely caused her some inconvenience and distress.

26. The Council will provide us with evidence it has done these things.

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Decision

27. The Council was at fault. This caused injustice to Mrs X and Y, which the Council will now take action to address.

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Investigator's decision on behalf of the Ombudsman