Summary: The Council was at fault for failing to issue Y’s final amended Education, Health and Care (EHC) Plan within statutory timescales following the annual review and it missed the phase transfer deadline. The Council was also at fault for failing to ensure Y received the therapy provision in their EHC Plan for over two terms. The Council has agreed to make a payment to remedy the injustice caused.

The complaint

1. Mrs X complained about the Council’s handling of her child Y’s EHC Plan. Mrs X complained the Council failed to:
• Issue Y’s final amended EHC Plan within statutory timescales following the annual review;
• Meet the phase transfer deadline; and
• Ensure Y received some of the provision in their EHC Plan.
2. Mrs X said as a result Y has missed out on a suitable education. The fault has also caused distress, frustration and uncertainty and delayed Mrs X’s appeal rights.

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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. 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)
5. 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 have and have not investigated

6. 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).
7. Some of Mrs X’s complaint is late as she said Y has not received some of the provision in their EHC Plan since September 2023. However, Mrs X did not complaint to us until August 2025. There is no evidence Mrs X could not have complained to us earlier about events before August 2024 and no good reasons to exercise discretion to go back further than 12 months. Therefore, I have investigated from September 2024 which was the start of the new school year. Y would not have received provision in August 2024 as it was the summer holidays.

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How I considered this complaint

8. I considered evidence provided by Mrs X and the Council as well as relevant law, policy and guidance.
9. Mrs 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

10. 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. 
11. 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 duty to arrange this provision is owed personally to the child and is non-delegable. This means if the council asks another organisation to make the provision and that organisation fails to do so, the council remains liable (R v London Borough of Harrow ex parte M [1997] ELR 62), (R v North Tyneside Borough Council [2010] EWCA Civ 135)  

Annual reviews

12. 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. Following the review meeting the council must issue a decision to either 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) 
13. If the council decides not to amend an EHC Plan or decides to cease to maintain it, it must inform the child’s parents or the young person of their right to appeal the decision to the tribunal.
14. 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.
15. If the child’s parents or the young person disagrees with the decision to cease the EHC Plan, the council must continue to maintain the EHC Plan until the time has passed for bringing an appeal, or when an appeal has been registered, until it is concluded.

Post-16 Phase transfer

16. For young people moving from secondary school to a post-16 institution or apprenticeship, the council must review and amend the EHC Plan – including specifying the post-16 provision and naming the institution – by 31 March in the calendar year of the transfer.  

Background

17. Mrs X has a child Y with special educational needs and an EHC Plan in place. In February 2024, Mrs X notified the Council Y was not receiving some of the provision in his plan, namely speech and language therapy (SALT) provision and social skills sessions. The EHC Plan included but was not limited to the following provision:
• A Speech and Language Therapist to provide training, advice, and strategies to school staff on pre-teaching vocabulary where necessary, so they are confident supporting Y in school.
• 1 hour training for staff by a Speech and Language Therapist with practical experience for teaching staff.
• 1 hour 45 minutes with a Speech and Language Therapist every 6 weeks (half term) to reset targets of the programme and liaise with staff and parents.
• 3 x 1 hour training sessions by a Speech and Language Therapist.
• 3-4 hours for a Speech and Language Therapist to reassess, report write and attend the annual review.
• Social skills sessions carried out by a trained teacher or teaching assistant twice weekly for 30-45 minutes. A qualified Speech and Language Therapist will need to devise the programme and train the teaching staff to carry it out (minimum 2 hours).

What happened

18. In September 2024, the Council held an annual review as Y was moving to post-16 education in September 2025.
19. The Council sent Mrs X its decision to amend the EHC Plan by early October 2024 which was within the four-week timescale. It should have then issued the final amended EHC Plan within eight weeks, so by the end of November 2024 at the latest.
20. In April 2025, Mrs X made a stage one complaint to the Council which said:
• The Council had failed to issue the final amended EHC Plan within the eight-week timescale following it sending Mrs X its decision to amend the Plan.
• It had also missed the phase transfer deadline of 31 March 2025.
• It had failed to ensure Y received the SALT and social skills sessions as set out in their EHC plan.
21. The same month the Council issued Y’s EHC Plan. Mrs X appealed this as the Council had removed the SALT provision from the Plan.
22. In May 2025, the Council issued a stage one complaint response partially upholding the complaint which said the following:
• It issued the final amended EHC Plan in April 2025 which was two weeks after the phase transfer deadline.
• It confirmed Y had not had any external advice or support from SALT as the school has a designated teaching assistant who requested key vocabulary for all subjects and then pre-taught the vocabulary to Y before each lesson.
23. In June 2025, Mrs X escalated her complaint to stage two and said the following:
• The final amended EHC Plan was issued 20 weeks outside the statutory timescale and two weeks outside of the phase transfer deadline.
• The SALT programme which is carried out by the teaching assistant needed to be created by a qualified SALT and updated every six weeks. One small part of the programme would be pre-teaching of vocabulary.
• Without updating the programme, Y had not made the progress they could have. Y has struggled with communication, particularly in social situations which Mrs X said had impacted their ability to attend certain events and lessons at school.
24. In July 2025, the Council said it would not consider the complaint at stage two. It said it considered the stage one response proportionate.
25. Mrs X has provided a letter from a Speech and Language Therapist dated March 2026. The therapist has said the following:
• The provision specified in Section F required an ongoing consultative model of input from a qualified Speech and Language Therapist, including regular review of progress, resetting of targets every six weeks, and termly liaison with staff and parents.
• The use of a teaching assistant to deliver pre-taught vocabulary, in the absence of regular SALT oversight, does not meet this specification. A teaching assistant is not qualified to assess, monitor, or adapt a speech and language programme.
• In the absence of this input, Y’s targets were not regularly reviewed or updated, there was no specialist monitoring of their progress, and no clinical judgement applied to determine whether the strategies in place were effective. This created a significant risk that support was either inappropriate or insufficient.
• As a result, Y was deprived of the opportunity to make the level of progress that would reasonably be expected had the provision specified in his EHC Plan been delivered.
26. Mrs X was dissatisfied with the Council’s handling of the matter and complained to us.

My findings

Annual reviews

27. The Council carried out the review of Y’s EHC Plan in September 2024 and it should have sent Mrs X its decision to amend the Plan within four weeks which it did. Following this, it should have issued Y’s final amended EHC Plan within statutory timescales. It had eight weeks to do this so it should have issued the Plan by the end of November 2024. It should have also issued it prior to the 31 March 2025, which was the phase transfer deadline.
28. The Council was at fault as it did not issue the amended final EHC Plan until mid-April 2025. This was a delay of 20 weeks outside of the statutory timescales and two weeks after the phase transfer deadline. This caused Mrs X distress, frustration and uncertainty. It also significantly delayed Mrs X’s appeal rights.
29. We found fault with the Council on a similar case. Following this, the Council agreed to develop an action plan setting out how it plans to address the ongoing delays with completing annual reviews of EHC Plans and ensuring statutory timescales are met. We will monitor compliance of this action plan and therefore, a further service improvement is not required.

Loss of provision

30. Y has an EHC Plan in place and the Council had a non-delegable duty to make sure Y received the special educational provision set out in section F of the Plan.
31. The Council failed to ensure Y received the SALT provision and social skills sessions as set out in their Plan between September 2024 and April 2025 despite the school confirming Y was not receiving this. This was fault which meant Y went over 2 terms without the provision they required. This impacted Y’s ability to attend lessons and make as much progress as they could have against the targets in their Plan.

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Action

32. Within one month of the final decision, the Council has agreed to:
1. Apologise to Mrs X for the distress, frustration and uncertainty caused by the delay in issuing Y’s final amended EHC Plan following the review and Y’s missed provision. We publish guidance on remedies which sets out our expectations for how organisations should apologise effectively to remedy injustice. The Council should consider this guidance in making the apology I have recommended.
2. Pay Mrs X £400 for the distress, frustration and uncertainty caused by the Council’s delay in issuing Y’s final amended EHC Plan following the review.
3. Pay Mrs X £950 for the injustice caused by Y’s loss of therapy provision between September 2024 and April 2025.
33. Within three months of the final decision, the Council has agreed to:
• Create an action plan to ensure it has procedures in place to provide oversight and take action where it is aware a child is not receiving provision in line with their EHC Plan.
34. The Council should provide us with evidence it has complied with the above actions.

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Decision

35. I find fault causing injustice. The Council has agreed actions to remedy injustice.

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Investigator's decision on behalf of the Ombudsman