Wirral Metropolitan Borough Council (25 012 270)
The Ombudsman's final decision:
Summary: We will not investigate this complaint about the Council’s handling of Mrs X’s son’s Education, Health and Care needs assessment. This is because the Council has apologised to Mrs X and agreed to pay her £200, and this provides a suitable remedy for the complaint.
The complaint
- Mrs X complains about delay by the Council in completing her son Y’s Education, Health and Care (EHC) needs assessment and issuing him an EHC Plan.
The Ombudsman’s role and powers
- We investigate complaints about ‘maladministration’ and ‘service failure’. In this statement, I have used the word fault to refer to these. 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)
How I considered this complaint
- I considered information provided by Mrs X and the Council.
- I considered the Ombudsman’s Assessment Code.
My assessment
- The Council accepts it took too long to complete Y’s EHC needs assessment and to issue him an EHC Plan. It has apologised for the delay, as well as for failures in its communication on both Y and Z’s (Mrs X’s second child) cases, and has offered to pay Mrs X £200 in respect of the delay, which Mrs X has accepted. It has also offered a financial remedy for its communication failures, which are the subject of a related complaint by Mrs X which we will consider separately.
- The £200 remedy agreed for the delay is broadly in line with remedies we have recommended in other similar cases, along with our ‘Guidance on Remedies’. I am therefore satisfied it is sufficient for the impact of the delay on Mrs X and Y. Further investigation is therefore unlikely to achieve anything worthwhile for Mrs X.
Final decision
- We will not investigate this complaint. This is because the Council has offered a suitable remedy for the delay in Y’s case and it is therefore unlikely Investigation would achieve significantly more for Mrs X.
Investigator's decision on behalf of the Ombudsman