Summary: Miss X complained the Council delayed finalising her son’s Education, Health and Care plan and did not respond to her complaint. We have found the Council was at fault. It caused a delay of nearly a year by not finalising her son’s plan and took ten months to respond to her complaint. This meant her son missed out on some support he needed. Miss X herself also experienced inconvenience and distress due to the delays in handling her complaint. The Council has agreed to take action to address their injustice.

The complaint

1. Miss X complains her son Y’s Education, Health and Care (EHC) plan was not amended after an early annual review and that her complaint was not responded to.

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The Ombudsman’s role and powers

2. 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)
3. 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)
4. 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

5. I considered evidence provided by Miss X and the Council as well as relevant law, policy and guidance.
6. Miss 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, guidance and policy

7. 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.
8. 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) 
9. 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). This should happen within four weeks of the date of the review meeting. Councils must issue the final amended EHC Plan within a further eight weeks.
10. The Council’s complaints policy says that it will respond to a Stage 1 complaint within 10 working days or if more complex, 20 working days. If the complaint escalates to Stage 2 they will respond within 20 working days of the date of the request to escalate the complaint.

What happened

11. An early annual review of Y’s EHC plan was carried out in June 2024.
12. In July 2024, Y’s school sent the review paperwork to the Council and recommended that the plan be amended.
13. In December 2024, Miss X made a formal complaint to the Council about the delay in amending the EHC plan.
14. In May 2025, Miss X referred her complaint to the Ombudsman because she had still not received the amended plan or a response to her complaint.
15. Later that month, the Council told the Ombudsman it would provide a complaint response by the end of June 2025.
16. When this timescale passed in June 2025, Miss X contacted the Council again to ask for an update.
17. In July 2025 another annual review was held.
18. In August 2025, the Council decided to amend the EHC plan.
19. The final EHC plan was issued in September 2025.
20. In October 2025, the Ombudsman asked for an update on Miss X’s complaint response. The Council sent its complaint response to both Miss X and the Ombudsman two days later.
21. The response was issued at Stage 2 due to the significant delays. The Council upheld Miss X’s complaint and apologised for the lack of response following the June 2024 review.
22. The Council said its SEND assessment service had “been experiencing an extreme demand for services which has resulted in delays across all areas, including responding to complaints.”
23. In its complaint response, the Council accepted its failings and apologised for the injustice to Y and the distress and frustration caused to them both.

My findings

24. The statutory timescale for amending EHC plans following a review, is clear and non-negotiable. The Council should have made a decision within four weeks of the review. Furthermore, the Council should have issued an amended plan within a further eight weeks. It did not do so and this is fault.
25. I consider that because of the delay in amending his EHC plan, Y will have missed out on some support.
26. The Council did not handle Miss X’s complaint in line with its own published complaints policy. After the Ombudsman contacted the Council, it agreed to issue a response within four weeks, but it did not do so. Instead, the response was delayed by a further four months. Overall, the complaint was nine months late, for which the Council was also at fault. This delay caused inconvenience and distress to Miss X.

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Action

27. Within five weeks of my decision, the Council has agreed to:
• Write to Miss X, apologising for the delay in amending Y’s EHC plan. We publish guidance which sets out what we expect an effective apology to look like. The Council will consider this guidance when writing to Miss X.
• Make a symbolic payment of £1,200 to Miss X, on Y’s behalf, to recognise that its delay in finalising Y’s EHC plan caused him to lose some support for around an academic year.
• Make a further symbolic payment of £300 to Miss X to recognise that the delay also caused her some inconvenience and distress and to recognise the delay in responding to her complaint.
28. The Council will provide us with evidence it has done these things.

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Decision

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

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Investigator's decision on behalf of the Ombudsman