Summary: We will not investigate Mrs X’s complaint about the Council’s handling of her children’s Education, Health and Care Plans. An investigation would not add anything to the Council's response or achieve a different outcome.

The complaint

1. The complainant, whom I shall refer to as Mrs X, complained about the Council’s handling of her children’s Education, Health and Care Plans (EHC Plans). Mrs X says the Council failed to extend the deadline for comments and finalised the EHC Plans without her consent leading to distress and anxiety.

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The Ombudsman’s role and powers

2. We investigate complaints about ‘maladministration’ and ‘service failure’, which we call ‘fault’. We must also consider whether any fault has had an adverse impact on the person making the complaint, which we call ‘injustice’. We provide a free service, but must use public money carefully. We do not start or continue an investigation if we decide:

• we could not add to any previous investigation by the organisation, or
• further investigation would not lead to a different outcome, or
• there is no worthwhile outcome achievable by our investigation.

(Local Government Act 1974, section 24A(6), as amended, section 34(B))

3. 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)
4. 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.
5. It is not a good use of public resources to investigate complaints about complaint procedures, if we are unable to deal with the substantive issue.

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How I considered this complaint

6. I considered information provided by the complainant and the Council.
7. I considered the Ombudsman’s Assessment Code.

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My assessment

8. In its response to Mrs X’s complaint the Council apologised for not responding to her request for an extension. It said parents must be given 15 calendar days to comment on EHC Plans. The Council said it gave 15 days for comments and then finalised the Plans so that Mrs X could appeal if unhappy. It said that as Mrs X had moved to a different council’s area any requests about the EHC Plans would need to be put to the new council.
9. While I understand Mrs X’s frustrations, we will not start an investigation into her complaint. The Council has apologised and our further involvement would be unlikely to lead to a different or worthwhile outcome. It is unlikely we would recommend any kind of financial remedy. As Mrs X now lives in a different area, Sefton’s involvement with the EHC Plans has ended. Any changes to the Plans need to be through the new Council or the Tribunal.
10. Mrs X is also unhappy with the Council’s handling of her complaint and says it was slow to respond. We will not normally look at complaint handling as a standalone issue if we are not going to look at the issue which led to the original complaint. There is no good reason to deviate from that position in this case.

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Final decision

11. We will not investigate Mrs X’s complaint because it is unlikely an investigation would achieve a different outcome.

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Investigator's decision on behalf of the Ombudsman