Summary: Mr X complained about the Council’s delays with a final Education, Health and Care Plan for his child after an annual review. This caused significant frustration, distress and uncertainty, with time and trouble with Mr X chasing updates. The Council accepted several faults, and we found it already appropriately remedied his personal injustice. We also found fault with its delays and poor complaint handling. The Council has taken action to prevent future recurrence of this fault, and we have not made further recommendations.

The complaint

1. Mr X complained about the Council's failure to conclude the 2024 annual review of his child's Education, Health and Care (EHC) Plan within statutory timeframes and its delays with his formal complaint. He says this caused significant frustration and uncertainty, especially about a suitable placement for his child.

Back to top

The Ombudsman’s role and powers

2. 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 recommend a remedy. (Local Government Act 1974, sections 26(1) and 26A(1), as amended)
3. 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)
4. Under our information sharing agreement, we will share this decision with the Office for Standards in Education, Children’s Services and Skills (Ofsted).

Back to top

How I considered this complaint

5. I discussed the complaint with Mr X and considered his views.
6. I considered the Council’s responses to Mr X’s complaint and information it provided to us, as well as relevant policy and guidance.
7. Mr X and the Council had an opportunity to comment on my draft decision. I considered any comments received before making a final decision.

Back to top

What I found

Law and administrative background

Education, Health and Care (EHC) Plans

8. A child with special educational needs and disabilities (SEND) 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 and at what placement.
9. The council must arrange for the EHC Plan to be reviewed at least once a year. The annual review process is only complete when the council issues its decision to amend, maintain or cease to maintain the EHC Plan. This must happen within four weeks of the meeting. If it decides to amend the EHC Plan, it should issue this within a further eight weeks of its decision.

The Council’s complaints policy

10. The Council’s corporate complaints policy says it will send a Stage 1 complaint response within 10 working days and a Stage 2 response within 20 working days.

Statutory children’s complaints procedure

11. This procedure has three stages for councils to follow for complaints about children’s social care services. At the first stage, councils have 20 working days to respond. At the second stage, councils appoint an investigation officer and an independent person. A report should be completed within a maximum of 65 working days. The third stage is an independent panel, held within 30 working days of a request.

What happened – summary of key relevant events

12. In spring 2025, Mr X complained to the Council. After an annual review of his child’s (Y) EHC Plan in late 2024, it had not made a formal decision.
13. The next month, the Council sent its Stage 1 complaint response. It apologised for its delays and for not updating Y’s EHC Plan in a timely manner after the annual review. Due to a change in staff, there was an oversight in the management of Y’s case. It accepted a lack of clear communication. Mr X escalated his complaint; he wanted the Council to name specialist School A.
14. In summer, the Council issued a final EHC Plan for Y, naming their current mainstream school. In autumn, Mr X complained to us. In response to us, the Council said it had not completed the three stages of the statutory children’s complaint procedure. It had sent an update to Mr X apologising for the delay.
15. In spring 2026, the Council responded at Stage 2:
• It acknowledged it failed to conclude the annual review process within timeframes required, causing frustration and distress. It did not have effective contact with him and Mr X went to time and trouble chasing updates.
• The Council could not find evidence of its actions with the consultation process with School A. It did not act in a way that supported timely placement planning.
• It found Y was attending their current school with an enhanced package of support. This met their needs and they were accessing education. But it understood it would not be suitable in the long term. It’s delay in naming a specialist placement caused uncertainty about Y’s future education.
• To reflect Mr X’s injustice, it offered a remedy of £750 and recommended other actions it would take around finding Y a placement. It signposted him to us.

Analysis

The Council’s remedies

16. The Council accepted faults with its handling of Y’s EHC Plan annual review and the placement consultation process. It did not work within timescales required for this (see Paragraph 9), resulting in a delay of nearly 6 months for the final EHC Plan. It also apologised to Mr X about the delays with his complaint. I welcome the Council’s remedies to recognise Mr X’s injustice and consider these appropriate. Mr X has accepted these, and the £750. I reviewed our guidance on remedies, and we would not recommend anything further.

Complaints handling

17. I consider the Council’s Stage 2 response to be detailed and thorough, but I am concerned it took nearly 9 months to send it after Mr X’s escalation request. This is an excessive delay and is fault. This is likely due to it incorrectly using the statutory children’s complaints procedure. His complaint was not about social care and so the Council should have used its corporate complaints procedure. It missed the opportunity to resolve the complaint sooner. This fault meant Mr X had to wait much longer for an outcome.
18. We noted the Council had done this in other recent decisions around EHC Plan complaints and unnecessarily prolonged the length of these too. We did not make recommendations on this specific issue, so I made some in my draft decision.

The Council’s response to my draft decision and actions taken

19. In response to my draft decision, the Council said it had reviewed its complaint handling arrangements for children’s services and clarified the distinction between those relating to education and those relating to social care. It was managing the former through its corporate complaints procedure, while those meeting the criteria for the statutory children’s complaints procedure are directed appropriately.
20. It shared this learning with relevant staff through management briefings and team discussions. Managers provided oversight of complaint allocation through quality assurance arrangements. It also recognised increased demand with SEND complaints and continued to recruit additional complaint investigators, to improve capacity, timeliness and consistency.
21. It identified several SEND related complaints outstanding and had taken appropriate action to ensure they were now managed under the correct procedure. The above work forms part of a wider improvement project to strengthen its complaints procedures and is currently ongoing.
22. In considering the above response, I am satisfied with the Council’s actions and evidence at this stage. I have therefore removed my recommendations before issuing the final decision as they are already complete.

Back to top

Decision

23. I find fault causing injustice. The Council provided an appropriate remedy for Mr X’s personal injustice. The Council has made service improvements to prevent future recurrence of fault with its complaints handling, and I do not recommend anything further.

Back to top

Investigator's decision on behalf of the Ombudsman