Summary: The Council was at fault in delaying assessing child Y for an Education, Health and Care (EHC) Plan, and in responding to Mrs X’s complaint. The delay in assessing Y caused distress and financial loss. The Council has agreed to make payments to Mrs X to remedy the injustice caused.

The complaint

1. Mrs X complained that the Council delayed in:
1. Assessing her child, Y, for an Education, Health and Care (EHC) Plan
2. Considering her request for additional support to be included in Y’s Plan
3. Consulting with suitable settings after Y’s Plan was issued, and
4. Responding to her complaint.
2. Mrs X said the Council’s actions caused her stress and anxiety, as well as financial losses because she felt obliged to pay for private Educational Psychology and Occupational Therapy assessments to reduce the delays in the EHC Plan assessment process. She wants to Council to reimburse her for these costs and provide a meaningful apology for its faults.

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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 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. The First-tier Tribunal (Special Educational Needs and Disability) (SEND) considers appeals against council decisions regarding special educational needs. We refer to it as the Tribunal in this decision statement.
6. The law says we cannot normally investigate a complaint unless we are satisfied the organisation knows about the complaint and has had an opportunity to investigate and reply. However, we may decide to investigate if we consider it would be unreasonable to notify the organisation of the complaint and give it an opportunity to investigate and reply. (Local Government Act 1974, section 26(5), section 34(B)6)
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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What I have and have not investigated

9. As set out at paragraph 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. Some of Mrs X’s complaints (complaints a) and b) set out at paragraph 1) were about the special educational provision and the educational placement included in Y’s EHC Plan, that she could have appealed.
10. However, we may decide to investigate if we consider it would be unreasonable to expect the person to use this right. In this case, the Council agreed to consult with Mrs X’s preferred type of placement – that is, Additionally Resourced Provisions (ARP) – shortly after issuing Y’s EHC Plan, during the window for submitting an appeal to the Tribunal. We consider it would have been unreasonable to expect Mrs X to have appealed to the Tribunal when the Council had given her a reasonable expectation that a placement in an ARP setting would be named for Y within a short time. And so, I have investigated these aspects of Mrs X’s complaint.
11. As set out at paragraph 6, the law says we cannot normally investigate a complaint unless we are satisfied the organisation knows about the complaint and has had an opportunity to investigate and reply. Mrs X complained to us about the Council delaying in consulting with suitable settings in June and July 2025 (complaint d) of paragraph 1). The Council has not had an opportunity to investigate and reply to this aspect of Mrs X’s complaint, and so I will not investigate it.

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How I considered this complaint

12. I considered evidence provided by Mrs X and the Council as well as relevant law, policy and guidance. I sent written questions to both parties and considered their responses.
13. 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

Law, policy and guidance

EHC Plan 

14. 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. 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. 

Timescales and process for EHC assessment 

15. 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);  
• Councils must give the child’s parent or the young person 15 days to comment on a draft EHC Plan and express a preference for an educational placement.
• The council must consult with the parent or young person’s preferred educational placement who should respond within 15 calendar days.

Advice and Information for EHC needs assessments

16. As part of the assessment, councils must gather advice from relevant professionals (SEND Regulation 6(1)). This includes: 

• The child’s educational placement; 
• Medical advice and information from health care professionals involved with the child; 
• Psychological advice and information from an Educational Psychologist (EP); 
• Social care advice and information; 
• Advice and information from any person requested by the parent or young person, where the council considers it reasonable; and 
• Any other advice and information the council considers appropriate for a satisfactory assessment. 

17. The council must not seek further advice if it already has advice and “the person providing the advice, the local authority and the child’s parent or the young person are all satisfied that it is sufficient for the assessment process”. In making this decision the council and the person providing the advice should ensure the advice remains current.  
18. Those consulted have a maximum of six weeks to provide the advice. 
19. The council may decide to seek additional advice, for example from an Occupational Therapist (OT) or Speech and Language Therapist (SALT), or the child’s parent or young person may request this. The council should decide if this is necessary based on the individual circumstances of the case.

What happened

20. This section sets out the key events in this case. Events that occurred after June 2025 are included for context only.
21. The Council received a request to carry out an EHC needs assessment for Y in early October 2024.
22. On 21 March 2025, Mrs X complained to the Council about the delay in assessing Y for an EHC Plan. She also complained the Council had told her there would be further delay if she waited for it to arrange assessments with an EP and an OT. She had therefore arranged and funded these assessments privately and provided them to the Council in March.
23. The Council issued a draft EHC Plan for Y on 8 April and a final Plan on 24 April. The final Plan named the mainstream primary school Y was already attending as the setting, with funding for 27 hours per week of additional support. The Council secured the placement and provision set out in the final Plan.
24. The Council responded to Mrs X at stage one of its complaints process on 20 May. It apologised for the delay of one month in responding to her complaint, and of two months in assessing Y. It said that any delay in issuing the draft and final EHC Plan after Mrs X had submitted the privately commissioned OT and EP reports was because of a department-wide restructure that happened at the same time.
25. Mrs X complained on 20 May that the Council’s Resource Panel had not considered her request for additional support hours for Y (32 instead of the 27 included in the EHC Plan). On 21 May she asked whether matters could instead be resolved by amending Y’s EHC Plan to name the ARP of their current school. She said the school had told her it had a place available for Y in that setting.
26. The Council responded to Mrs X at stage two of its complaints process on 19 June. It apologised again for the delays in assessing Y and in responding to Mrs X’s complaint at stage one. The Council acknowledged that Mrs X’s request for 32 hours of support had been missed by the Resource Panel, but it had been considered and refused at the next meeting (one week later). The Resource Panel had instead agreed to consult with ARPs to find a suitable placement for Y. The Council said it was awaiting consultation responses from three ARPs, including Mrs X’s preferred setting, and the Council’s Placement Panel would consider these when they were received.
27. Mrs X escalated her complaint to the Ombudsman on 20 June. She contacted us again on 3 July with concerns that the Council was delaying in naming an ARP.
28. The Council issued a final (amended) Plan for Y on 24 July, naming the ARP within the school Y was attending. Y attended that placement from September 2025.

Analysis

29. The Council delayed in assessing Y for an EHC Plan. The resulting delay in issuing a final EHC Plan for Y was two months beyond the statutory timescale of 20 weeks from when the assessment was requested. The Council acknowledged this fault, and apologised for it, in its responses to Mrs X’s complaint. However, I do not consider an apology is a sufficient remedy for the distress and uncertainty caused, for which I will recommend a symbolic payment.
30. The Council’s fault also caused a financial loss in that Mrs X felt it necessary to pay privately for EP and OT reports to prevent further delay. The Council told me that, while evidence from an EP is mandatory, the absence of an OT report “would not have prevented the EHC Plan from being issued”. However, the Council acknowledged that it accepted the advice and used both reports to inform the content of the EHC Plan. And so, I consider it should reimburse Mrs X for her direct financial losses in this regard. I will recommend accordingly.
31. Mrs X complained that, after Y’s EHC Plan was issued, the Council delayed in considering her request for additional support to be included in Y’s Plan (specifically, a request for an increase in funded support from 27 hours to 32). The Council has acknowledged it was at fault in that it neglected to take Y’s case to its Resource Panel at the first opportunity. I do not consider this fault caused significant injustice as the Council presented the case at the following week’s Panel meeting.
32. The Council was at fault in that it took two months to respond to Mrs X’s stage one complaint, one month beyond the 20 working days set out in the Council’s complaints policy. However, the Council apologised for this delay in both its stage one and stage two complaint responses, and I consider that apology is a suitable remedy for the frustration caused.
33. I will not make any recommendations for service improvements as I am satisfied the Council is addressing delays in EHC needs assessments via the Recovery Plan it has created and alerted the Ombudsman to. This includes plans for:

• Recruitment and retention of more educational psychologists and other professionals who are critical to the EHCNA process.
• A streamlined assessment processes to improve compliance with the 20-week statutory timeframe.
• Continued support for families during the assessment period, including improved communication and transparency.
• Monitoring and accountability measures to track progress and ensure the timely delivery of plans.

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Action

34. Within one month of my final decision, the Council has agreed to:
1. Make Mrs X a symbolic payment of £200 in recognition of the distress and uncertainty caused by the two-month wait for an EHC Plan, and
2. Refund Mrs X the costs of the EP and OT reports that she paid for privately, subject to Mrs X providing evidence of those costs.
35. The Council should provide us with evidence it has complied with the above actions.

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Decision

36. 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