Summary: Mrs B complained the Council failed to issue an amended Education, Health and Care (EHC) Plan for her daughter, who I will refer to as C, within statutory timescales following an annual review. She also complained the Council failed to fund a dyscalculia assessment for C, did not hear her personal budget requests in a timely manner, and did not communicate with her effectively. There was fault by the Council. The Council did not issue C’s final amended EHC Plan within statutory timescales following an annual review. The Council’s communication was also poor and there was a delay in the panel rehearing Mrs B’s personal budget request after it received information it was waiting for. Because of the fault, Mrs B suffered distress and uncertainty, and a frustrated right of appeal. C also missed provisions and support. The Council has agreed to apologise to Mrs B and make symbolic payments.

The complaint

1. Mrs B complains the Council has failed to:
• Issue an amended Education, Health and Care (EHC) Plan for her daughter, who I will refer to as C, within statutory timescales following an annual review.
• Hear her request for a personal budget in a timely manner, and her subsequent request for a review when it refused a personal budget.
• Fund a dyscalculia assessment for C.
• Communicate with her effectively.
2. Mrs B says the Council’s actions have caused C to miss provision, and she has suffered distress and anxiety. Mrs B says her own health and wellbeing has also been affected.
3. Mrs B would like the Council to:
• Finalise C’s amended EHC Plan.
• Make a timely decision about her request for a personal budget.
• Reimburse her for the private dyscalculia assessment she has funded.
• Offer an appropriate remedy for the distress caused to her and for C’s missed provision.

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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 an injustice, we may suggest a remedy. (Local Government Act 1974, sections 26(1) and 26A(1), as amended)
5. 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)
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 SEND Tribunal in this decision statement.
7. 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.
8. 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)
9. Under the information sharing agreement between the Local Government and Social Care Ombudsman and the Office for Standards in Education, Children’s Services and Skills (Ofsted), we will share this decision with Ofsted.

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What I have and have not investigated

10. I have investigated matters in this case from December 2024, when an annual review of C’s EHC Plan took place, to June 2025, when Mrs B brought her complaint to us. I reference matters outside of these dates for context.
11. I have not investigated Mrs B’s complaint the Council did not fund a dyscalculia assessment for C as part of the EHC needs assessment process. The Council issued the final amended EHC Plan in October 2025. The final EHC Plan gave Mrs B the right to appeal to the SEND Tribunal. While Mrs B complains the Council failed to fund a dyscalculia assessment for C, the way for her to challenge this was by appealing to the SEND Tribunal. The courts have established we cannot investigate matters or closely linked matters which are appealable to the SEND Tribunal.

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How I considered this complaint

12. I read Mrs B’s complaint and spoke to her about it on the phone.
13. I considered evidence provided by Mrs B and the Council as well as relevant law, policy and guidance.
14. Mrs B 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

EHC Plan 

15. 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.

Reviewing EHC Plans

16. 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 cease to maintain 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) 
17. 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). Case law sets out this should happen within four weeks of the date of the review meeting. Case law also found councils must issue the final amended EHC Plan within a further eight weeks.

Personal budgets

18. A Personal Budget is the amount of money the council has identified it needs to pay to secure the provision in a child or young person’s EHC Plan. One way that councils can deliver a Personal Budget is through direct payments. These are cash payments made to the child’s parent or the young person so they can commission the provision in the EHC Plan themselves.
19. A child’s parent or the young person has the right to request a Personal Budget when the council has completed an EHC needs assessment and confirmed it will prepare an EHC Plan. They may also request a Personal Budget during a statutory review of an existing EHC Plan.

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What happened

20. This is a summary of events outlining key facts and it does not include everything that has happened in this case.
21. The Council held an annual review meeting of C’s EHC Plan in early December 2024. Mrs B requested a personal budget for C and sent the Council further evidence for her request that it required, in February 2025. The Council held a meeting with Mrs B to discuss her request for a personal budget later that month. The request then went to panel in early March 2025 and was deferred until the end of that month so further discussions could be had. The panel outcome was that it did not agree to a personal budget. The Council shared the outcome with Mrs B in late April 2025.
22. Around the same time, Mrs B complained to the Council about delays in the annual review process and the Council hearing her request for a personal budget, and the Council’s refusal of this request.
23. The Council issued an amended draft EHC Plan a few days later, in early May 2025. Mrs B provided her comments on the draft Plan to the Council, and it issued a second amended draft EHC Plan. Mrs B further complained to the Council, as she had requested a review of its decision to refuse a personal budget for C, but it had not told her when it would consider her review request. The Council told Mrs B a couple of weeks later it had submitted her review request to panel and the panel wanted to seek the views of an educational psychologist (EP) before it heard her request.
24. Mrs B brought her complaint to us in June 2025 and told us the Council had not yet issued the final amended EHC Plan. In July 2025, the panel reheard Mrs B’s request for a personal budget for C, and it again refused her request. The Council issued C’s final amended EHC Plan at the end of October 2025.

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Analysis

25. The Council has acknowledged, and it is clear from the documentation, there have been delays in this case. The Council did not write to Mrs B with its notice to amend the EHC Plan within four weeks of the annual review meeting. The annual review meeting took place on 9 December 2024. The Council sent the proposed amended EHC Plan to Mrs B on 7 May 2025. It also did not write to Mrs B with the final amended EHC Plan within eight weeks of the proposed draft EHC Plan. The Council issued the final EHC Plan on 31 October 2025. This is a delay of roughly 34 and a half weeks.
26. The 34 week wait delayed Mrs B’s right of appeal to the SEND Tribunal until the Council issued the final amended EHC Plan in October 2025. We take the view councils musty abide by statutory and legislative requirements under the SEN legislation and guidance. The Council’s failure to meet the required timescales was fault and has caused Mrs B distress and frustration.
27. The final amended EHC Plan details additional provisions for C, including weekly small group reading intervention and one to one support in lessons for several specific school subjects. It also includes supports such as helping with food choices, and one to one support to complete an exercise programme in school as recommended by a physiotherapist, for 20 minutes three times a week. But for the delay, on balance, C would have benefited from the additional provision and support sooner. This delay caused an injustice to C.
28. In response to my enquiries, the Council told me the issuing of the final amended EHC Plan following the annual review was due to staffing pressures within the service. It says it is taking steps to address these issues which includes reviewing staffing arrangements and exploring further options to improve its efficiency and ensure timeliness in its service. I have therefore not made service improvement recommendations as it seems the Council is already taking steps to improve its service. There also does not appear to be any current themes within our casework which highlight a systemic issue within the Council in relation to this identified fault. We do however monitor emerging themes and issues in the complaints that are brought to us and will make service improvement recommendations where appropriate, which we carefully monitor to help drive improvement to council services.
29. Mrs B told us she would like a reimbursement for the dyscalculia assessment she paid for. The claimed injustice from the Council’s refusal to arrange a dyscalculia assessment for C is a Plan which Mrs B considers to not meet the needs of C. This is a matter appealable to the SEND Tribunal. We therefore cannot recommend the Council reimburse Mrs B the costs of the dyscalculia assessment, for the reason outlined in paragraph 11.
30. There were no delays by the Council in actioning Mrs B’s request for a personal budget. The request progressed to panel in a timely manner and the Council shared updates with Mrs B throughout this time. However, there were delays by the Council after Mrs B requested a review when the panel refused her personal budget request in late April 2025. Mrs B contacted the Council in May 2025 and told it the Council had not told her when her review would be considered at panel. The Council did not respond to this until the following month. The Council also told Mrs B around this time that the panel wanted to seek the views of an EP before it reheard her request. But the request was not reheard at panel until around four weeks after the EP’s view was received. The delay in the Council confirming when the request would be reheard and the delay in the panel rehearing the request after receiving the EP’s view caused Mrs B further distress and uncertainty.
31. The Council’s communication with Mrs B has been poor. It has not always responded to her correspondence in a timely manner and there have been times Mrs B has chased the Council for updates. Mrs B was already under significant pressure due to other failings by the Council, and its poor communication caused additional frustration.
32. Sometimes we will recommend a financial payment to the person who brought their complaint to us. This might be to reimburse a person who has suffered a quantifiable financial loss, or it might be more of a symbolic payment which serves as an acknowledgement of the distress or difficulties they have been put through. But our remedies are not intended to be punitive and we do not award compensation in the way a court might. Nor do we calculate a financial remedy based on what the cost of the service would have been to the provider.
33. We have published guidance to explain how we calculate remedies for people who have suffered injustice because of fault by a council. Our primary aim is to put people back in the position they would have been in if the fault by the Council had not occurred.

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Action

34. To remedy the outstanding injustice caused to Mrs B by the fault I have identified, the Council will take the following actions within four weeks of my final decision:
• Apologise to Mrs B for the injustice caused to her and C by the Council’s delay in issuing the final amended EHC Plan following the annual review, the delay in the Council confirming when the personal budget request would be reheard, the delay in the panel rehearing the request after receiving the EP’s view, and the poor communication. This apology should be in accordance with our guidance Making an effective apology.
• Pay Mrs B £400 to acknowledge the injustice caused to her as outlined in paragraph 26, by the Council’s delays in the annual review process and issuing of the final amended EHC Plan.
• Pay Mrs B £1,725 to acknowledge the additional provision and support C would have received sooner, as outlined in paragraph 27, had there not been delays by the Council in the issuing of the final amended EHC Plan following the annual review.
• Pay Mrs B £150 to acknowledge the injustice caused to her as outlined in paragraphs 30 and 31, by the delay in the Council confirming when the personal budget request would be reheard, the delay in the panel rehearing the request after receiving the EP’s view, and the poor communication.
35. The Council should provide us with evidence it has complied with the above actions.

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Decision

36. I uphold Mrs B’s complaint and find fault causing injustice. The Council has agreed actions to remedy injustice.

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Investigator's decision on behalf of the Ombudsman