Summary: The Council was at fault for a delay in amending Mrs X’s daughter’s special educational needs support. This likely caused her to miss out on some support and likely caused Mrs X some inconvenience and distress. The Council has already accepted that it was at fault and has apologised. It has now also agreed to make a symbolic payment to recognise the injustice to Mrs X and her daughter.

The complaint

1. Mrs X complains that the Council reviewed her daughter’s (Y’s) special educational needs support in April 2024, but did not make a decision on the support for almost a year.
2. Mrs X also complains that Y’s school did not receive the right funding for her needs during this period of delay.
3. Mrs X says these matters caused her inconvenience and distress, and led to Y missing out on support.

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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 cannot investigate a complaint if someone has appealed, or could have appealed, to a tribunal about the same matter. We also cannot investigate a complaint if in doing so we would overlap with the role of a tribunal to decide something which has been or could have been referred to it to resolve using its own powers. (Local Government Act 1974, section 26(6)(a), as amended)
6. The First-tier Tribunal (Special Educational Needs and Disability) considers appeals against council decisions regarding special educational needs. We refer to it as the Tribunal in this decision statement.
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 guidance.
10. 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

Guidance

11. 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.
12. Statutory government guidance (the ‘SEND code of practice’) says that, within four weeks of an annual review, the council must write to the child’s parent and tell them whether it has decided to keep the EHC plan as it is, amend it or cease it.
13. If the council has decided to amend the plan, it must do so and issue a new one within a further eight weeks.

What happened

14. The Council held an annual review of Y’s EHC plan in April 2024.
15. In March 2025, the Council issued an amended EHC plan. It did not share this with Mrs X.
16. Later in March, Mrs X complained to the Council. She said there had been no outcome from Y’s annual review in April 2024. She said this should have been resolved in four weeks.
17. The Council responded to Mrs X’s complaint in April. It apologised for the delay (and for a lack of communication during that period of delay) and said this had been caused by a change in case worker and “unprecedented demand on our services”.
18. The Council told Mrs X that it had made “a decision” in March (meaning the amended EHC plan). It said it had not shared this with Mrs X and it apologised.
19. Mrs X complained again, saying the Council’s response did not actually say whether Y’s provision would be increased. But the Council declined to respond further, saying Mrs X had not provided any new information which would justify another response.

My findings

20. The Council should have issued Y’s amended EHC plan no later than 12 weeks after her annual review (which would have been in mid-July 2024). It did not do so until March 2025. This was a delay of around eight months, for which the Council was at fault.
21. The Council has acknowledged this and has apologised. However, it has not offered Mrs X any further remedy for her, or Y’s, injustice.
22. I have considered an approach we took to remedying EHC plan delay in a public report issued against Tameside Council earlier this year (case reference 24 000 621). And I have decided that, in line with the approach taken in that report and with our remedies guidance, the Council should make a symbolic payment to
    Mrs X to recognise all likely distress, inconvenience and loss of provision arising from the delay (including any loss of provision which may have been caused by a lack of proper funding to the school).
23. I will not investigate the allegation that Y’s school was paying for provision itself without this being funded by the Council, because this does not concern an injustice to Y and is a matter to be resolved between the school and the Council. Any loss of provision arising from this matter is recognised by the symbolic payment I have recommended below.
24. I cannot investigate the eventual decision on Y’s provision (in March 2025) because Mrs X could have appealed that to the Tribunal (and may well have done). My role cannot overlap that of the Tribunal.

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Action

25. Within four weeks, the Council has agreed to make a symbolic payment of £500 to recognise that its delay to Y’s EHC plan likely caused Mrs X some inconvenience and distress, and likely caused Y to miss out on some special educational needs support.
26. The Council will provide us with evidence it has made this payment.

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Decision

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

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Investigator's decision on behalf of the Ombudsman