Summary: Mr Y complains about delays by the Council in assessing his child’s special educational needs and issuing an Education, Health and Care plan. He says the delays resulted in his child missing educational provision. We find there were significant delays in both the assessment process and the issue of the final plan. The Council has agreed to remedy the injustice caused with a symbolic payment and evidence of service improvements it has made to prevent similar delays in future.

The complaint

1. Mr Y complains about delays in issuing his child’s Education, Health and Care (EHC) Plan and the further failure to make the Section F provision available once that plan was issued.
2. As a result, Mr Y says his child missed a significant amount of education at a crucial stage in their schooling.

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The Ombudsman’s role and powers

3. 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)
4. The law says we cannot normally investigate a complaint when someone has a right of appeal, reference or review to a tribunal about the same matter. However, we may decide to investigate if we consider it would be unreasonable to expect the person to use this right. (Local Government Act 1974, section 26(6)(a), as amended)
5. When considering complaints we make findings based on the balance of probabilities. This means that we look at the available relevant evidence and decide what was more likely to have happened.
6. 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).

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How I considered this complaint

7. I considered evidence provided by Mr Y and the Council as well as relevant law, policy and guidance.
8. Mr Y and the Council had an opportunity to comment on my draft decision. I considered any comments before making a final decision.
9. 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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What I found

What should happen

10. Statutory guidance ‘Special educational needs and disability code of practice: 0 to 25 years’ (‘the Code’) sets out the process for carrying out EHC assessments and producing EHC Plans. The guidance is based on the Children and Families Act 2014 and the SEN Regulations 2014. It says the following: 

• Where the council receives a request for an EHC needs assessment it must decide whether to agree to the assessment and send its decision to the parent of the child or the young person within six weeks. 
• The process of assessing needs and developing EHC Plans “must be carried out in a timely manner”. Steps must be completed as soon as practicable. 
• If the council goes on to carry out an assessment, it must decide whether to issue an EHC Plan or refuse to issue a Plan within 16 weeks.
• If the council goes on to issue an EHC Plan, the whole process from the point when an assessment is requested until the final EHC Plan is issued must take no more than 20 weeks (unless certain specific circumstances apply);  

What happened

11. This section of the decision statement provides a summary overview of the key events relevant to the complaint. It does not list every action which happened in the period subject to investigation.
12. On 5 February 2024 the Council received a request to assess Mr Y’s child, who I will call D, for an EHC plan.
13. The Council submitted information to its SEND panel on 29 February 2024 about D’s education. This confirmed that D had been electively home educated (EHE) since leaving their previous primary school in September 2020. The records stated that: "[D] appears to be receiving suitable home education and is making progress”.
14. The Council decided on 13 March 2024 that an assessment was not necessary. Mr Y challenged that decision and, following mediation, the Council decided on 4 June 2024 to proceed with an assessment and requested advice from an Educational Psychologist (EP).
15. The EP provided their report on 2 October 2024. Following this, the Council decided on 9 October 2024 to produce and issue an EHC plan for D.
16. Dissatisfied with the delays, Mr Y complained to the Council on 14 November 2024. The Council responded on 16 December 2024. In summary, this said:
• The Council apologised for the delays in issuing D’s draft EHC plan and upheld this part of Mr Y’s complaint.
• The Council made assurances that D’s draft EHC plan would be issued by 19 December 2024, along with a consultation to the parents’ preferred setting.
17. The Council consulted with several settings, including Mr Y’s preferred placement. One mainstream school provided a positive response but noted that D’s EHC plan contained lots of specialist provision which may increase their risk of isolation.
18. Following receipt of the consultation responses, the Council passed D’s case to its SEND panel in February 2025. The panel decided the placement which provided a positive response was appropriate to be named in Section I of D's EHC plan.
19. The Council issued D’s draft EHC plan on 12 February 2025. The plan named the mainstream school. Mr Y disagreed with the decision and told the Council that D would not attend.
20. Following further consideration, the Council issued a final EHC plan on 23 April 2025. As before, the plan named the mainstream school, but this time with provision to be delivered within the specialist resource provision based at that school. The decision included a right of appeal to the SEND Tribunal.
21. Emails from Mr Y to the Council show that he continued to express his decision not to send D to the school allocated by the Council.
22. The Council says the school invited Mr Y and D for a meeting in June 2025 to discuss D’s registration and transition.
23. D received EHE until 2 September 2025 which ended when he started attending the school named in the EHC plan.

Was there fault causing injustice to Mr Y and D?

24. The statutory timescale for completing an EHC needs assessment and issuing a final EHC plan is 20 weeks. In this case, the process began on 5 February 2024, meaning the Council should have issued the final plan by 24 June 2024. Instead, the Council issued the final plan on 23 April 2025, resulting in a total delay of 10 months beyond the statutory timescales.
25. Although the council initially refused to assess D, mediation does not pause the statutory clock, so the original 20-week deadline still applied. Most of the delay occurred after the assessment completed in October 2024, with long gaps before both the draft and final plans were issued by the Council.
26. Some of the delay was due to the wait for Educational Psychology advice. The Council requested EP input on 4 June 2024, but the EP did not complete their report until 2 October 2024, taking 120 days instead of the statutory 6 weeks. This represents an EP related delay of 11 weeks.
27. The Ombudsman’s guidance for remedying injustice caused by EP related delays suggests a financial remedy of £100 per month of delay. In Mr Y’s case, that equates to £250. The remaining delay was due to the Council’s own failures to progress the assessment and issue D’s draft and final plan. Using the Ombudsman’s remedy tariff for significant delay affecting a child’s education (typically £900 to £2,400 per school term) we consider £2,250 is an appropriate remedy for the remaining 7.5 months of delay. Taken together, we recommend a total financial remedy of £2,500.
28. In addition to the initial delay, Mr Y also complained the Council failed to meet its duty under Section 42 of the Children and Families Act 2014 to secure the provision in D’s final EHC plan after it was issued in April 2025. The records show that during this period Mr Y electively home educated D and had told the Council he did not intend to take up the school place named in Section I of the plan. Any disagreement about the named placement carried a right of appeal to the SEND Tribunal. We have therefore considered whether D missed education during this period and, if so, whether this was due to fault by the Council. On the balance of probabilities, the evidence shows the school place was available, but Mr Y chose not to accept it at that time. We therefore find no fault in this part of Mr Y’s complaint.
29. We have considered whether to recommend some service improvements. In response to Mr Y’s complaint, the Council said:

“The LA SEND Service are currently undertaking both internal and external training to better support knowledge and understanding regarding statutory processes. Alongside this the LA are creating clear and transparent policies to ensure that moving forwards there is clear understanding around legislation and expectations to prevent further experiences of what you have shared. A further element of training is around co production and communication which I am hopeful will have a positive impact on the educational journey of children, young people, and families within the SEND Service”

30. In light of this, we do not recommend additional service improvements because the Council has already started taking steps to address the issues identified as a result of this complaint. However, it is important that these actions are completed and put into practice. We will therefore monitor the Council’s progress and request evidence that the training, policy updates, and other measures it has described have been fully implemented.

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Action

31. Within four weeks of our final decision, the Council has agreed to:
• Make a payment of £2,500 to Mr Y. This is a symbolic payment in recognition of the specialist provision which D missed because of the Council’s delays in assessing and issuing their EHC plan.
32. Within eight weeks of our final decision, the Council will also:
• Provide evidence of the service improvements it has already implemented. This includes:
1. Evidence of the internal and external training undertaken regarding statutory processes, co-production and communication.
2. Evidence of the ‘clear and transparent’ policies implemented to ensure better understanding of legislation and expectations.
33. The Council will provide us with evidence it has complied with the above actions.

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Decision

34. I find fault causing injustice, The Council has agreed to implement the actions listed in the section above to remedy injustice caused by fault.

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Investigator's decision on behalf of the Ombudsman