Summary: Mrs X complained about the delay from the Council in issuing her child’s Education, Health and Care plan. She says that because of the delay, her child lost out on special educational provision. Also, due to this they were delayed in changing schools. These failures caused both Mrs X and her child distress. We found the Council at fault. It delayed in issuing the plan for four months. The Council will act to apologise and make payment for the missed special educational provision with a further payment to recognise the frustration caused by the delayed appeal rights to the Special Educational Tribunal.

The complaint

1. Mrs X complained about the delay from the Council in issuing her child’s Education, Health and Care (EHC) plan. She says that because of the delay, her child lost out on special educational provision. Also, due to this they were delayed in changing schools.
2. These failures caused both Mrs X and her child distress in the belief the Council were not treating them fairly. Also, for missing out on special educational provision which was subsequently recommended in the EHC plan.

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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. 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. After the Council issued the EHC Plan in October 2025, Mrs X has appealed some sections of the plan to the Tribunal. This includes the school placement named and some provision listed in the plan.
8. 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)
9. We can look at matters that do not have a right of appeal, are not connected to an appeal, or are not a consequence of an appeal. For example: 

• delays in the process before an appeal right started;
• The support in an EHC Plan that is not being delivered to the child or young person and we decide the cause is not connected to an appeal that has, or should have, happened; and
• alternative education when the reason the child or young person is not attending education is, in our view, not connected to or is not a consequence of a matter that was, or could have been, part of an appeal to the Tribunal.  

10. In this case, we have considered any injustice caused due to the delay in issuing the EHC plan. We have not considered any injustice after the Council issued the plan as Mrs X exercised her appeal rights to use the Tribunal.

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How I considered this complaint

11. I considered evidence provided by Mrs X and the Council as well as relevant law, policy and guidance. Mrs X and the Council had the opportunity to comment on my draft decision. I considered any comments before making a final decision.
12. I have also considered the relevant statutory guidance, as set out below. In addition, I have considered the Ombudsman’s published guidance on remedies.

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What I found

What should have happened

13. 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. 
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 the following: 

• Where the council receives a request for an EHC needs assessment it must decide whether to agree to the assessment and send its decision to the parent of the child or the young person within six weeks. 
• The process of assessing needs and developing EHC Plans “must be carried out in a timely manner”. Steps must be completed as soon as practicable. 
• If the council goes on to carry out an assessment, it must decide whether to issue an EHC Plan or refuse to issue a Plan within 16 weeks.
• If the council goes on 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 (unless certain specific circumstances apply)  

15. As part of the assessment, councils must gather advice from relevant professionals (SEND Regulation 6(1)). This includes: 

• the child’s educational placement; 
• medical advice and information from health care professionals involved with the child; 
• psychological advice and information from an Educational Psychologist (EP); 
• social care advice and information; 
• advice and information from any person requested by the parent or young person, where the council considers it reasonable; and 
• any other advice and information the council considers appropriate for a satisfactory assessment. 

16. The council must not seek further advice if it already has advice and “the person providing the advice, the local authority and the child’s parent or the young person are all satisfied that it is sufficient for the assessment process”. In making this decision the council and the person providing the advice should ensure the advice remains current.  
17. Those consulted have a maximum of six weeks to provide the advice. 

What happened

18. Mrs X applied for her child to have an assessment for an EHC plan in February 2025. The Council agreed to complete an assessment and had until June 2025 to produce a final EHC plan.
19. In April 2025 the Council received advice from an Educational Psychologist. Due to staff shortages the Council failed to issue the EHC plan until October 2025.
20. Mrs X says that due to the delay her child lost out on special educational provision. She could also not apply for a specialist school for the start of the academic year in September 2025. The Council named the existing school on the plan in October 2025. Mrs X then appealed this to the Tribunal. However, she dropped the appeal into this after the Council amended the school named on the plan. This occurred after the Council secured a placement at the school to start in Easter 2026.

Analysis

21. The Council delayed in completing the EHC Plan for Mrs X. Although I appreciate the reasons provided for the delay by the Council, the delay was ultimately caused by maladministration.
22. The delay caused Mrs X injustice in the form of frustration and distress in believing the Council were not treating her fairly. Also, with believing that her child was missing out on special educational provision.
23. When the EHC plan was finalised in October 2025 it did list that Mrs X’s child had extensive needs and needed added support. It is therefore fair to conclude if the EHC plan had been produced within statutory timeframes (by June 2025) that Mrs X child would have received support sooner. Consequently, Mrs X’s child has lost out on this because of the delay caused directly by the Council.
24. Our guidance on remedies states that when a child has lost out on special educational provision, we can make an award to consider the impact of this loss. In doing so I have considered that Mrs X’s child was not in a key year of education (such as taking their GCSEs) and the level of support they needed on their EHC plan.
25. In total the delay encompasses June and July of the summer term and September and October of the autumn term. I have therefore considered this to be one term overall in the terms of missed provision and have made an award of £1,200 to reflect the injustice caused by the Council’s fault.
26. Mrs X has also explained that she believes her child has lost out on starting at a specialist school because of the delayed EHC plan. However, I cannot say for certain that if the EHC plan was produced sooner, that it would have named the school in time for the start of the academic year in September 2025.
27. The Council did not name the requested school when it issued the EHC plan in October 2025. Also, there are several circumstances which could have prevented the school from being named if the Council issued the plan on time.
28. What is not in dispute, is that Mrs X has experienced frustration from not having appeal rights sooner. If the Council had produced the plan on time, then she could have appealed sooner if the school was not named on the plan. We can consider this frustration caused by the fault in the delay as part of our findings.
29. I have considered this from June 2025 through to October 2025 when the plan was produced and consider that an additional award of £300 is sufficient in consideration of this. I also find the Council should apologise to Mrs X for the injustice she has experienced because of this issue.

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Action

30. Within four weeks of the final decision, the Council has agreed to:
1. Provide Mrs X with an apology for the injustice caused by the delay in producing the EHC plan and the frustrated appeal rights this also caused.
2. Pay Mrs X £1,200 for the injustice caused by the missed special educational provision for June, July, September and October 2025.
3. Pay Mrs X £300 for the frustration caused by the delayed appeal rights experienced from June to October 2025.
31. We publish guidance on remedies which sets out our expectations for how organisations should apologise effectively to remedy injustice. The organisation should consider this guidance in making the apology I have recommended in my findings.
32. The Council should provide us with evidence it has complied with the above actions.

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Decision

33. I find fault causing injustice. The Council will apologise to Mrs X and make payment to her for the injustice caused.

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Investigator's decision on behalf of the Ombudsman