Summary: We upheld a complaint from Miss B, finding the Council allowed drift and delay in its management of her son’s case, when he was not in full-time education. We considered this caused injustice, mainly as distress because it is uncertain if, with greater involvement, the Council education service may have done more to help him access education. The Council has accepted these findings and agreed action to remedy this injustice. It will also introduce a written policy explaining how it will carry out its duty under Section 19 of the Education Act 1996, to provide education to children missing full-time education.

The complaint

1. Miss B complained the Council failed to ensure her son, C, received a suitable education after he began secondary school in September 2022.
2. C has special educational needs and struggled to access education despite having an Education, Health and Care (EHC) Plan. Miss B said the Council failed to update his Plan often enough and his absence from education increased his distress and isolation. Miss B said this increased the pressure she was under in caring for C and caused her isolation and exhaustion.

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The Ombudsman’s role and powers

3. The Local Government Act 1974 sets out our powers but also imposes limits on what we can investigate.
4. We cannot investigate late complaints unless we decide there are good reasons. Late complaints are when someone takes more than 12 months to complain to us about something a council has done. (Local Government Act 1974, sections 26B and 34D, as amended)
5. We cannot investigate a complaint if someone has 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. Where we can investigate, we will consider complaints about ‘maladministration’ and ‘service failure’. I have used the word fault to refer to these. We consider whether there was fault in the way an organisation made its decision. If there was no fault in how the organisation made its decision, we cannot question the outcome. (Local Government Act 1974, section 34(3), as amended)
8. 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 recommend a remedy. (Local Government Act 1974, sections 26(1) and 26A(1), as amended)
9. If 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)
10. 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 did and did not investigate

11. I investigated events covered by this complaint between January 2024 and October 2025.
12. I did not investigate events before January 2024. I considered any complaint about those events as late and I did not find good reason to investigate. My reasons were as follows:

• Miss B complained to us in June 2025. So, her complaint about events before June 2024 was late;
• I found good reasons to investigate events between January and May 2024. Records showed that in January 2024 the Council accepted C could no longer attend a mainstream secondary school because of his needs. So, it began to provide education for him at home, meaning a new chapter in his education began. I thought it fair to look at Miss B and C’s experience from this time, until October 2025, when the Council issued C with an updated EHC Plan;
• before January 2024 I accepted Miss B’s account that C had struggled to attend his mainstream secondary school, since beginning that phase of his education in September 2022;
• but Miss B had made no complaint about how the Council responded to his needs between September 2022 and December 2023. This coincided with a period of illness for her. However, I noted that did not prevent Miss B appealing the content of C’s EHC Plan issued in Autumn 2023 to the Tribunal;
• I therefore found no good reason to think Miss B could not have complained sooner also.

13. A secondary reason I could not investigate events before January 2024 was because Miss B had appealed the content of the EHC Plan issued to C in Autumn 2023. As I explained above, we lose power to investigate where someone has appealed to a tribunal about the same matter (paragraph 5). In October 2023 Miss B appealed several parts of C’s EHC Plan, including how the Plan described his needs, what education he needed to meet his needs and what education setting he should attend. So, I had limited scope to investigate any of these matters before January 2024, even if I did not consider the complaint late.
14. I could not investigate events beyond October 2025. Miss B had already complained to us by then which approximately coincided with when we began deciding if we should investigate the complaint (early November 2025). At the point we complete that initial consideration of a complaint, we lose the power to investigate the Council’s actions.
15. Also, when Miss B received a new Plan for C in October 2025, she gained fresh appeal rights. So, she could appeal to the Tribunal if unhappy with how the Council described C’s needs, or the extent of provision set out in his Plan or its setting. We usually expect a parent to use rights of appeal if they consider an EHC Plan does not properly reflect their child’s needs or provide for a suitable education for them.
16. I also noted in her complaint to us Miss B expressed dissatisfaction with a lack of social care in place for C. My investigation did not consider children’s social services involvement in C’s case and decisions taken to provide, or not provide, services to him. This was because when Miss B first complained to the Council in February 2025 about services in place for C, it considered complaints about education and social services separately. We support this approach as the law for how the Council should respond to complaints about children’s social services contains important differences from how it should respond to complaints about its education services.
17. My investigation does not therefore prevent Miss B from making a separate complaint to us about children’s social services handling of C’s case during the period under investigation.

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How I considered this complaint

18. I considered evidence provided by Miss B and the Council as well as relevant law, policy and guidance.
19. I gave Miss B and the Council a draft version of this decision statement to comment on. I considered any comments they made and / or further evidence they provided in response before putting this statement in its final format.

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What I found

Relevant Legal and Administrative Considerations

Education, Health and Care Plans

20. 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 arrangements made to meet them.
21. The council has a duty to make sure the child or young person receives the special educational provision set out in section F of an EHC Plan (Section 42 Children and Families Act). The Courts have said the council owes the duty to arrange this provision personally to the child and cannot delegate it. So, where the council arranges for another organisation to provide education, if it fails to do so the council will remain liable. (see R v London Borough of Harrow ex parte M [1997] ELR 62), (R v North Tyneside Borough Council [2010] EWCA Civ 135)  
22. That said, we accept councils cannot keep a ‘watching brief’ on whether all children with EHC Plans receive their special education provision at all times. Instead, we expect councils to gather enough information to show they have oversight in fulfilling their legal duty. What this means in practice is that we expect them to: 

• check special educational provision is in place after they issue a new or amended EHC Plan, or when a child has a change in educational placement; 
• check the child’s provision at least annually during the EHC review process (see also paragraphs 23-25); and 
• investigate in response to any complaints or concerns raised by parents about the provision their child receives.

23. The council must arrange for a review of an EHC Plan 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. Following the review meeting the council must issue a decision to either amend, maintain or end 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) 
24. Where the council proposes to amend an EHC Plan, the law says within four weeks of the review meeting 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 evidence to support the proposed changes. (Section 22(2) Special Educational Needs and Disability Regulations 2014 and SEN Code paragraph 9.194). 

25. The council must then issue a final amended EHC Plan within a further eight weeks.

The Section 19 duty

26. Section 19 of the Education Act 1996 says a council must arrange suitable alternative educational provision when it finds that a child cannot attend school because of:

• a permanent exclusion;
• an illness; or
• for any other reason making the school inaccessible to the child.

27. Where a child remains enrolled in a school, the council should consider efforts made by the school to support the child. For example, sending work home for the child to complete, arranging disability related support, placing the child on a reduced timetable, or providing online education as a short-term measure. Where a clear, effective, and time-bound plan for reintegration exists, the council may have no immediate role in providing alternative education.
28. If the council decides it must arrange alternative provision, it needs to arrange that based on the child’s individual needs. Councils can decide a child cannot cope with full-time provision, especially where medical reasons cause their non-attendance. When this happens, the Council should provide reasons for the provision it arranges.
29. If a child has an Education, Health and Care (EHC) Plan the council also has an ongoing duty to arrange the support guaranteed by the Plan (see paragraph 21). However, this might not always be possible, such as where it has designed support for a classroom setting.
30. We publish good practice guidance on how we expect councils to fulfil their responsibilities to identify and arrange alternative educational provision: Supporting children out of school (October 2025)
31. Our guidance includes saying that councils should keep all cases of part-time education under review to see if it they can increase this over time. Also, they should work with parents and schools to draw up plans to reintegrate children to their normal educational setting, reviewing and amending plans as necessary.
32. Statutory Government guidance says that all councils “should have a written, publicly accessible policy statement on their arrangements for complying with the section 19 duty. [They] should have processes or policies in place which support a child in getting the right and appropriate type of provision […].” (see “Arranging Alternative Provision: A Guide for Local Authorities and Schools” (February 2025)).

The key facts

33. C is a child with special educational needs. He entered the secondary phase of his education in September 2022 attending a mainstream secondary school. His needs meant he struggled to attend school full-time and by April 2023 his school considered it could no longer those. The Council went on to issue him with an EHC Plan which continued to name a mainstream school. Miss B did not agree with the contents of the Plan, including the named school and appealed to the Tribunal in October 2023.
34. In January 2024 the Council accepted C could not attend a mainstream school. For some months previously he had access to a virtual school, but C’s needs meant he had only limited participation with that also. So, the Council agreed to provide C with tuition at home. It entered a contract with a provider that this would be for “up to 15 hours a week”. But in practice Miss B said his tuition was only around one hour a week.
35. Simultaneously the Council considered whether C needed a specialist school placement. It agreed this in March 2024. It then agreed a consent order with Miss B which ended her appeal. It issued a new ECH Plan for C which named a specialist school (School X).
36. The EHC Plan said School X would arrange for him to have an “individual learning and support programme” that it would review at least once a term. The Plan said C would need “slow transition” to School X and that he needed an “enhanced transition and transition plan”. This envisaged a “reduced timetable with a gradual increase in attendance”.
37. The Council’s records contain no record of further contact with School X before December 2024, when the school provided a report on C’s progress. This said C was having more interaction with a key member of staff and that he took part in “short sessions” of teaching at home. But the report explained C had yet to attend the school building.
38. In February 2025 Miss B made a complaint to the Council. That part of her complaint about C’s education said his EHC Plan was out of date and the Council should arrange a review.
39. In March 2025 School X provided another quarterly report. It referred to C having improved engagement with learning, but explained he still only received teaching at home. It recorded his attendance around 25%.
40. In May 2025 a review of C’s EHC Plan took place. Miss B made comments before the review wanting changes to C’s Plan. This included specifying that C should receive between six and ten hours a week home tuition, with provision to increase this over time.
41. In June 2025 Miss B contacted this office because while the Council had acknowledged receipt of her complaint, it had not answered it. She said the Council had failed to ensure C had received adequate education since September 2022 and his EHC Plan was out-of-date.
42. We deferred investigating the complaint, asking the Council to respond. It did so in late July 2025, at the second and final stage of its complaint procedure. It apologised for the delay in replying to the complaint which led it to decide not to provide a response at ‘stage one’ of the procedure.
43. The Council said that after Miss B complained in February it had completed a review of C’s EHC Plan. It promised her that it would issue an updated draft Plan by mid-August and it apologised to her for a delay in issuing C’s previous Plan. It offered Miss B a symbolic payment of £500 to recognise its delay in replying to her complaint and in completing the annual review. She did not accept the payment offered.
44. In August 2025 the Council issued a draft amended Plan that contained modest changes to Section F of the Plan, specifying C’s education provision.
45. In October 2025 the Council issued a final Plan for C, containing only those changes it proposed in August.
46. In comments made in response to my enquiries, the Council told us it had no published policy explaining how it carries out its duties under Section 19 of the Education Act 1996. But I found on its website some materials explaining how it responded when schools or officers reported children missing education. I discuss this in my findings below.
47. The Council has also told us that during the time covered by this complaint, its special educational needs service was under pressure. This was because of increased demand for its service and not having enough staff to meet this demand. It said this contributed to the delay in it answering Miss B’s complaint.
48. The Council also told us it had an improvement plan in place and had improved its timeliness in replying to complaints. By August 2026 it answered around 80% of complaints in its published timescales (20 working days for both ‘stage one’ and ‘stage two’ complaints).

My findings

49. I found fault in the Council’s management of C’s case throughout the time under investigation (January 2024 to October 2025). I set out above, that we do not expect councils to keep a ‘watching brief’ over schools and other education providers, delivering education to children with EHC Plans. But we do expect them to maintain oversight, especially in complex cases. I found the Council had failed to do that in C’s case and that inattention had to result in this finding.
50. Specifically, I noted:

• there was no evidence the Council checked the home tuition arranged for C in January 2024, before it agreed a place for him at School X from March 2024;
• there was no evidence the Council checked the provision C received from School X, nor asked for any updates, before December 2024. This despite C’s Plan recognising he could not resume education full-time;
• there was no record the Council made any more checks with School X after December 2024. This despite the evidence provided then which showed C remained on a heavily reduced part-time timetable and only received education at home. It made no enquiries to find out what plan was in place to try and increase his exposure to education, nor what barriers prevented that. It made no attempt to arrange an earlier review of C’s EHC Plan despite knowing these facts;
• it had failed to ensure a review of C’s EHC Plan took place within 12 months of the previous review, held in 2023.

51. I also had concern the Council did not have a policy explaining how it would carry out its duties under Section 19 of the Education Act. As set out in paragraph 32 this is a clear expectation of Government.
52. I found on the Council’s website there was some explanation for how it tried to meet the needs of some pupils out of school. It explained that it has a Temporary Provision Panel which agrees provision for pupils who struggle to, or cannot, attend school. It also explained the role of specialist teams that arrange out-of-school tuition and tailor-made programmes of education for some pupils. But it did not publish anything explaining how it approached this duty in cases where children have special educational needs and /or an EHC Plan and those needs contribute to their absence from school.
53. Our guidance explains councils should have policies and procedures to review cases where pupils are on a part-time timetable, or otherwise struggle to attend school, over a prolonged time. The lack of a clear policy here was therefore a fault. I considered it may have contributed to why it took so long for the Council to review C’s Plan after he became enrolled at School X.
54. There was also fault after the Council began its review of C’s EHC Plan in May 2025. It failed to confirm within four weeks its intent to amend the Plan and provide a copy of the proposed amendments to Miss B. And it took more than 12 weeks from the date of the review meeting to issue C with an amended Plan, delaying over 10 weeks in total.
55. There was also fault when Miss B complained, drawing attention to the Council’s delays. It failed to provide a reply to her complaint at stage one of its corporate complaint policy. It was not until Miss B contacted this office, four months after her complaint to the Council, that it provided a reply at stage two.
56. In its reply, the Council recognised delay in answering Miss B’s complaint and arranging C’s review held in May 2025. It apologised and offered a symbolic payment, which was good practice.
57. However, I did not consider these measures went far enough to remedy the injustice caused to Miss B and C by the faults identified above. I found these had caused distress. I could not say C lost out on specific additional provision or support from the Council’s education service. Because while the Council should have done more to review C’s progress, his needs were complex and these created difficulty for him in engaging with education. I considered C’s health needs contributed to these difficulties and addressing those was outside the Council’s control. But that said, had the Council’s education service reviewed C’s case more that would in turn, have called for liaison with health services.
58. I found some uncertainty therefore about whether C’s access to education could have been greater over the time covered by this investigation but for the drift and delay in the Council’s management of his case. This was the cause of the distress.
59. I also considered the Council’s delay in replying to Miss B’s complaint caused her injustice as she had unnecessary time and trouble in pursuing her complaint. This was above that normally expected when someone chooses to complain about a Council service.

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Agreed Action

60. The Council has accepted the findings set out above. To remedy the injustice caused to Miss B and C detailed in paragraphs 57 to 59 it has agreed to recommendations that within 20 working days of this decision, it will:
1. apologise to Miss B accepting the findings of this investigation. We publish guidance on remedies which sets out our expectations for how organisations should apologise effectively to remedy injustice. The Council will consider this guidance in making its apology;
2. make a symbolic payment to Miss B of £1000. I explain how I calculated this figure below.
61. I calculated the symbolic payment having referred to the Ombudsman’s guidance on remedies. I considered the distress identified at paragraphs 57-58 merited a payment of £750 given its prolonged duration. I considered a further £250 payment appropriate for the time and trouble identified in paragraph 59. I did not offset this against the payment offered by the Council in July 2025, as Miss B had not accepted that.
62. I did not think it appropriate to recommend any specific action the Council should take in its ongoing delivery of its education service to C. The Council told me that after October 2025 it again reviewed C’s EHC Plan. It issued a further updated version of his Plan, in final format, in June 2026. Miss C therefore had a further opportunity to appeal to the Tribunal if she considered the Council’s education provision for C was inadequate.
63. However, I did want the Council to consider what wider lessons it could learn from this complaint. As I explained in my findings above, I had particular concern the Council did not have a Section 19 policy. I considered this could benefit both its officers and parents in understanding how it discharges its duties towards children not in full-time education. The Council has agreed therefore that within 20 working days of a decision on this complaint it will:
1. commit to agreeing to introduce such a policy and provide us with a timescale for when this will complete of no more than six months;
2. commit that when writing that policy it will take account of our guidance on this subject referred to in paragraphs 30 and 31, and the specific concerns raised by this case discussed in my findings;
3. commit to ensuring it makes all relevant officers aware of the policy once complete and tells us how it will do that and by when.
64. The Council understands therefore it will need to provide us with evidence it has complied with the actions detailed in paragraphs 60 and 63. This will include sharing with us the new Section 19 policy when complete to show compliance with paragraph 63b) and confirming when its programme for raising awareness of that policy has completed in line with the agreed action at 63c).

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Final Decision

65. I upheld this complaint finding fault by the Council caused injustice to Miss B and C. The Council has agreed actions that I consider will remedy that injustice and improve its service. So, I have completed my investigation satisfied with its response.

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Investigator's decision on behalf of the Ombudsman