Summary: Mrs C complained about the delay in the Council completing an Education, Health and Care (EHC) needs assessment and issuing an EHC Plan for her daughter D. We found the Council delayed by nine months. This caused distress and inconvenience to Mrs C and D to miss out on essential educational support. The Council has agreed to apologise and make a symbolic payment to Mrs C and D.

The complaint

1. Mrs C complained that Staffordshire County Council (the Council), in respect of her daughter, D, failed to complete an Education, Health and Care (EHC) needs assessment or issue an EHC Plan within the statutory time frame. Mrs C said the delay caused D to miss out on education, along with experiencing emotional distress and increased anxiety, leading to suspensions from school and a reduced timetable. It has also caused Mrs C and the rest of the family distress and inconvenience.

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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)

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How I considered this complaint

4. I considered evidence provided by Mrs C and the Council as well as relevant law, policy and guidance.
5. Mrs C and the Council had an opportunity to comment on my draft decision. I considered any comments before making a final decision.
6. 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

Special educational needs

7. A child or young person with special educational needs may have an EHC Plan. This document sets out the child’s needs and what arrangements should be made to meet them. The EHC Plan is set out in sections. We cannot direct changes to the sections about their needs, education, or the name of the educational placement. Only the Tribunal or the council can do this

EHC assessment process

8. 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

9. Mrs C’s daughter D was struggling at school. On 23 October 2024 Mrs C requested an EHC needs assessment. The Council agreed to this request on 28 November.
10. Mrs C chased the Council on 26 February 2025 as a draft EHC Plan should have been issued by then. The Council advised her to contact the Educational Psychology (EP) team for an update as there was a delay in getting an EP report.
11. In mid-March Mrs C complained to the Council as the 20-week deadline had now passed. She also provided a copy of D’s recent autism diagnosis.
12. On 1 April an EP was allocated to the case. On 29 April the Council responded to the complaint at stage one of its complaints procedure. It said the EP report was due to be returned to the Council in late May. It said there was a high demand for EHC assessments which delayed the allocation of her case to an EP. It upheld her complaint and said it had increased the number of key workers and EPs by 33%. It had also increased the number of locum EPs to work on the backlog of assessments which should eliminate the backlog by July 2025.
13. Mrs C remained unhappy and escalated her complaint to stage two of the Council’s complaints procedure.
14. The EP met with Mrs C and D on 26 May.
15. Mrs C chased up the Council at the beginning of June. The Council responded on 17 June upholding Mrs C’s complaint but declining to carry out a stage 2 review. Mrs C complained to us.
16. The EP report was added to the Council’s information hub which Mrs C could access. She requested amendments and the EP send two further amended reports to the Council in July and August.
17. The Council sent a draft EHC Plan to Mrs C on 11 September, and the final EHC Plan was issued on 12 December naming D’s current school with 30 hours of support from a learning support assistant, until September 2025 when she would attend a new specialist school.

Reduced timetable

18. During this period D had been on a reduced timetable of 15 hours a week from 28 April, increasing to 21 hours a week from 9 June and 25 hours from July. There were several occasions when the school had to call Mrs C or D had to go home.
19. D was also suspended from school on five occasions between April and November for periods of between one and five days.

Findings

20. The Council delayed in completing the EHC needs assessment and issuing an EHC Plan. It should have issued the final plan by mid-March 2025. It did not do so until 12 December, nine months late. This was fault.
21. If the Council had issued the Plan on time, D would have received 30 hours of extra support per week in her current school approximately two terms earlier. This may have helped D to attend school consistently on a full-time basis and avoided the frequent suspensions. The delay also caused Mrs C inconvenience and distress, chasing up the Council and supporting her daughter.

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Action

22. In recognition of the injustice caused to Mrs C and D, I recommended within one month of the date of my final decision, that the Council:
• Apologises to Mrs C and D and makes a symbolic payment of £1200 (two terms @£600 per term).
23. I have not made a service improvement recommendation as the Council has recently sent us information showing the waiting time for assessments is reducing and the backlog has gone.
24. The Council has agreed to my recommendations and should provide us with evidence it has complied with the above actions.

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Decision

25. I find fault causing injustice. The Council has agreed actions to remedy injustice.

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Investigator's decision on behalf of the Ombudsman