Summary: The Council delayed issuing Miss X’s child, Y’s final Education, Health and Care (EHC) Plans following an annual review in 2024 and an EHC needs reassessment during early 2025. This resulted in a loss of provision for Y between May 2025 and July 2025 causing frustration, distress and uncertainty. The Council agreed to apologise and make a symbolic payment to remedy this injustice.

The complaint

1. Miss X complained about delays in the Education, Health, and Care (EHC) Plan process for her child, Y. She said the Council:
• failed to adhere to annual review timescales for her child Y;
• delayed issuing a final EHC Plan after agreement to assess in February 2025; and
• delayed responding to request and complaints.
2. Miss X says the matter has caused her frustration, distress, time and trouble. She also says the faults have caused Y to lose out on provision that could have supported their progression.

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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 Local Government Act 1974 sets out our powers but also imposes restrictions on what we can investigate.
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 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 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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How I considered this complaint

10. I considered evidence provided by Miss X and the Council as well as relevant law, policy and guidance.
11. Mis 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

Relevant law and guidance

EHC Plans

12. 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. 
13. The EHC Plan is set out in sections which include: 

• Section B: Special educational needs.  
• Section F: The special educational provision needed by the child or the young person. 

EHC Plans - Annual reviews

14. 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.
15. Invitations to attend a review meeting along with copies if all written contributions, should be sent to all attendees, including parents at least two weeks before the review meeting. (Section 20(3) Special Educational Needs and Disability Regulations 2014)
16. Within four weeks of a review meeting, the council must notify the child’s parent of its decision to maintain, amend or discontinue the EHC Plan. Once the decision is issued, the review is complete. (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 Courts have found councils must both notify the parent of the decision to amend, and what the proposed changes are within 4 weeks of the annual review meeting. The council must then issue any final amended plan within 8 weeks of the amendment notice. This means a final plan must be issued within 12 weeks of the review meeting.

Reassessments of EHC Plans

18. The council must decide whether to conduct a reassessment of a child or young person’s EHC Plan if this is requested by the child’s parent, the young person or their educational placement. The council may also decide to complete a reassessment if it thinks one is necessary.
19. If the council agrees to an EHC needs reassessment, it has 14 weeks to issue the final EHC Plan from the date it agreed to reassess.

What happened

20. Miss X’s child, Y, has special educational needs (SEN) which is set out in their EHC Plan.
21. In July 2024 an annual review of Y’s EHC Plan took place, however afterwards Miss X raised concerns that she had not had access to all the reports submitted as part of the review. It was agreed that the review would be deferred until September 2024. It did not take place in September.
22. In October 2024 Mrs X requested an updated Educational Psychologist (EP) assessment for Y’s EHC Plan. She made repeated requests for an updated EP assessment from October 2024 to January 2025. Miss X’s requests were acknowledged by the Council, but it did not provide a response either accepting or declining her request.
23. In January 2025 Miss X complained to the Council about delays in the annual review process and poor communication.
24. The Council apologised and upheld Miss X’s complaint, it said the annual review process had not been completed within statutory timescales and there had been unacceptable delays in Mis X receiving a response to her requests for an updated EP assessment for Y.
25. The Council said it would request an updated EP assessment and provide Miss X with a timescale. It said it would request a Speech and Language Therapy (SaLT) assessment, provide an updated report to inform Y’s EHC Plan, facilitate and provide information for an Occupational Therapy (OT) assessment and ensure the annual review process was completed.
26. Miss X escalated her complaint in April 2025 saying there had been no progress relating to Y’s EHC Plan.
27. The Council responded in June 2025 and said:
• reassessment had been agreed for Y on the 13 February 2025 and should have been completed by the 21 May 2025;
• the EP assessment was not completed until the 8 May which contributed to the delay;
• EP, OT and SaLT assessments had now been completed and a draft would be shared with Miss X by late June 2025.
• the final amended EHC Plan was likely to be delayed by two months and it acknowledged this had caused Miss X time, trouble and distress. It offered and paid Miss X £500 to recognise this.
28. Miss X received a draft amended EHC Plan for Y in June 2025 and the final amended EHC Plan at the end of July 2025. The amended plan includes notable changes to support, cognition and learning within Section F of Y’s EHC Plan. Miss X said OT and SaLT provision had not been included in the final plan.
29. Miss X remained unhappy with the Councils actions and response and asked the Ombudsman to investigate the matter.

Analysis

30. The Council has accepted delays and fault in the annual review process. The Council did not ensure all of the relevant paperwork was sent to Miss X two weeks before the July 2024 annual review. This meant the Council needed to arrange another meeting which did not take place. Following this, Miss X asked the Council to carry out an updated EP assessment which the Council also failed to respond to until after Miss X complained. All of this was fault and caused distress and uncertainty.
31. After agreeing to reassess Y in early 2025 the Council did not issue the final EHC Plan until late July 2025. The Council failed to carry out both the annual review process and needs reassessment in line with statutory timescales. It failed to either issue an amended notice or issue a Plan following the July 2024 annual review and took 10 weeks longer than allowed to issue Y’s final EHC Plan after agreeing to the needs reassessment during February 2025. These delays were fault which caused distress and uncertainty.
32. The final plan includes additional SEN provision in section F which Y would have received for half a term had the plan been issued on time. Therefore, I find there was a loss of SEN provision between May and July 2025 causing injustice to Y.
33. Any dispute about the content of the EHC Plan issued in July 2025, is for the SEND Tribunal. Miss X can exercise her right of appeal to the SEND tribunal if she remains unhappy with the content of the plan.
34. The Council has acknowledged delays in the EHC needs process and provided a financial remedy for this to Miss X. However, I have not seen evidence to show it considered the injustice caused by the annual review process faults identified above. I find the Council should make an additional payment to recognise the frustration, distress and uncertainty Miss X has experienced caused by these and to recognise the loss of SEN provision to Y for half a school term from May 2025 until July 2025.
35. The Council has already agreed to undertake work on improving the EHC Plan review process after the Ombudsman upheld other cases. For this reason, I have not made further service improvement recommendations here as we will monitor the impact of these changes through our complaints.

Action

36. To remedy the injustice the Council caused to Miss X due to faults identified in the EHC Plan annual review process, within one month of the final decision the Council will:
1. Apologise in writing to Miss X to acknowledge the injustice caused by the faults identified

We publish guidance on remedies which sets out our expectations for how organisation should apologise effectively to remedy injustice. The organisation should consider this guidance in making the apology I have recommended in my findings.

2. Pay Miss X £650 to acknowledge the distress, uncertainty and frustration she experienced as a result of the Council’s poor communication and failure to adhere to the annual review statutory process between July 2024 and February 2025 and Y’s loss of SEN provision included in the new EHC Plan between May and July 2025.
2. The Council will provide us with evidence it has complied with the above actions.

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Decision

38. I find fault causing injustice due to delays in the EHC review and assessment process.

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Investigator's decision on behalf of the Ombudsman