Summary: The Council was at fault because of a delay in completing the education, health and care needs assessment process for the complainant’s son. This was an example of service failure, rather than maladministration, because it was caused by a shortage of available educational psychologists. The Council has agreed to offer the complainant a financial remedy to reflect her distress at the delay.

The complaint

1. I will refer to the complainant as Mrs K.
2. Mrs K complains about a significant delay in the Council’s completion of an education, health and care (EHC) needs assessment for her son, W. She says, as a result, W has not attended school for an extended period of time.

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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)

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How I considered this complaint

4. I considered evidence provided by Mrs K and the Council as well as relevant law, policy and guidance.
5. I also shared a draft copy of this decision with each party for their comments.

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What I found

6. In November 2024 Mrs K asked the Council to complete an EHC needs assessment for W. The Council agreed to do so.
7. On 13 May 2025, Mrs K submitted a stage 1 complaint to the Council. She said it had missed the deadline of 30 April to issue an EHC plan for W, and complained she had received no contact from the Council about it.
8. The Council responded on 29 May. It clarified the deadline for issuing W’s plan had been 6 April. It apologised for missing this, and explained it was experiencing high demand for its services and a shortage of educational psychologists (EPs), who played an important role in the EHC needs assessment process. The Council said it had recently recruited some new EPs and hoped to reduce its backlog soon. It advised Mrs K to contact its relevant locality team for assistance if she considered W’s school could not support him in the meantime.
9. Mrs K submitted a stage 2 complaint on an unrecorded date. She criticised the Council for its explanation for the delay, and said this was not an excuse. Mrs K explained W had been absent from school for nearly a year, and asked the Council for contact details of the locality team.
10. The Council responded on 25 July. It reiterated the delays in its service had been caused by a shortage of available EPs. However, it explained it had decided to prioritise W’s case, and said he would be seen by an EP in the first part of the upcoming Autumn Term.
11. Mrs K referred her complaint to the Ombudsman the following day.
12. In November the Council issued W’s EHC plan. It named his current mainstream school as his ongoing placement.

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Legislative background

13. A child or young person with special educational needs may have an 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 SEND Tribunal or council can do this. 
14. 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, if the council decides 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.

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Analysis

15. The Council has acknowledged it should have issued W’s final EHC plan by 6 April. It did not do so until 11 November, more than seven months later. This is a significant delay.
16. However, the Council has explained this delay was because of the high demand on its services, and the availability of its EPs. We are aware there is a national shortage of EPs, and this is causing delays similar to that experienced by Mrs K in many local authority areas. Given this is not in the Council’s control, I consider the fault here to be an example of service failure, rather than maladministration by the Council.
17. In her complaint to the Ombudsman, Mrs K says her desired outcome was for the Council to “help more families”. Unfortunately there is no useful recommendation we can make to resolve this issue.
18. At the point of her complaint, Mrs K said W had been out of school for most of an academic year. It is unclear if, and to what degree, she considers this was due to the lack of an EHC plan.
19. However, I note the plan, when issued, named W’s current school as his placement. Given this, it appears unlikely he would have started to attend the school again, even if the Council had issued the plan sooner. I therefore do not consider the delay in issuing the plan to be clearly responsible for W’s absence from school.
20. Rather, I consider the injustice to Mrs K in this case is a general distress and frustration at the delay in issuing W’s EHC plan. In accordance with our published guidance on remedies, I consider the Council should offer a remedy of £250 to reflect this.

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Action

21. Within one month of the date of my final decision, the Council should offer to pay £250 to Mrs K, to reflect her distress and frustration at the delay in completing the EHC needs assessment process for W.
22. The Council should provide us with evidence it has complied with the above actions.

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Decision

23. I find fault causing injustice.

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Investigator's decision on behalf of the Ombudsman