Summary: We will not investigate this complaint about the Council’s handling of the Education, Health and Care Plan process. This is because the Council has agreed to an appropriate remedy for the injustice caused by delay. The remaining points of complaint we will not investigate because it is reasonable for the complainant to appeal to the First-Tier Tribunal (Special Educational Needs and Disability) if she is unhappy with the contents of the finalised Plan.

The complaint

1. Mrs X has raised a number of complaints regarding the Council’s handling of her child’s Education, Health and Care (EHC) Plan. Specifically, she complained the Council:
• Failed to meet statutory deadlines following an annual review of the EHC Plan;
• Failed to incorporate information in the EHC Plan relating to her child’s health, education,
• Refused her requests for Speech and Language Therapy and Occupational Therapy
• Removed quantified provision
• Applied the advice from the Educational Psychologist (EP) in a selective way
• Misrepresented her views in the EHC Plan and omitted information regarding social care
• Failed to communicate with her effectively
• Failed to follow the directions of its SEND Panel
• Failed to issue a legally compliant EHC Plan and used the SEND Panel as a mechanism for delay when finalising the Plan
• Failed to respond to her complaint properly
• Failed to revise the inadequate advice received from the EP
• Failed to include her child’s social, emotional and mental health needs within the EHC Plan
2. Mrs X says the Council’s failures have resulted in delays to provision being provided to her child, avoidable distress, a lack of trust and time and trouble.

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The Ombudsman’s role and powers

3. The Local Government Act 1974 sets out our powers but also imposes restrictions on what we can investigate.
4. 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)
5. 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.
6. 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:

• any injustice is not significant enough to justify our involvement, or
• further investigation would not lead to a different outcome, or
• we cannot achieve the outcome someone wants, or
• there is another body better placed to consider this complaint, or
• there is no worthwhile outcome achievable by our investigation.

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

7. We provide a free service but must use public money carefully. We may decide not to start or continue with an investigation if we are satisfied with the actions an organisation has taken or proposes to take. (Local Government Act 1974, section 24A(7), as amended)
8. 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

9. I considered information provided by the complainant and the Council.
10. I considered the Ombudsman’s Assessment Code.

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My assessment

Annual Review of EHC Plan

11. Mrs X’s child’s annual review meeting was held on 19 May 2025. The Council should have issued its decision to amend the Plan by 16 June 2025 and it should have issued the final amended Plan by 11 August 2025. There was a delay of approximately one month in finalising the Plan. This is fault and it has caused Mrs X frustration and distress.
12. In cases like this we consider a payment of £100 to be a suitable remedy for each month of delay. We therefore asked the Council to remedy the injustice caused by making a payment to Mrs X to resolve the complaint early. The Council has agreed to the following to remedy Mrs X’s complaint:
• Pay Mrs X £100 for the one-month delay in issuing the final EHC Plan following an annual review. The Council should make the payment within four weeks of the date of this final decision.
13. The Council has agreed a suitable remedy therefore we will not investigate this aspect of Mrs X’s complaint.

Content of EHC Plan

14. Most of Mrs X’s complaint relates to the content of the EHC Plan. Parents who are unhappy with the contents of an EHC Plan have a right to appeal to the Tribunal. It is the mechanism set up by Parliament for parents to challenge such decisions. We expect parents to use their right of appeal unless it is unreasonable for them to do so.
15. If Mrs X is unhappy with the content of her child’s EHC Plan following the annual review, it is reasonable for her to use her right to appeal to the Tribunal. Therefore, we will not start an investigation into these aspects of Mrs X’s complaint.

Lack of effective communication

16. Mrs X is unhappy she has had to correspond with several different council officers regarding her child’s EHC Plan and she requests a single point of contact.
17. We will not investigate this aspect of Mrs X’s complaint because it did not cause injustice on a scale which warrants us investigating. In any event, due to high staff turnover it would not be realistic for one person to only communicate with Mrs X. We would not be able to achieve the outcome Mrs X wants.

Complaint handling

18. We will also not investigate how the Council dealt with Mrs X’s complaint as it is not a good use of public resources to investigate complaints about complaint handling when we are not looking at the substantive issue.

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Final decision

19. We will not investigate Mrs X’s complaint because the Council has offered a suitable remedy for the identified injustice. It is reasonable for Mrs X to use her right of appeal to the Tribunal if she is unhappy with her child’s EHC Plan.

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Investigator's decision on behalf of the Ombudsman