Summary: Mrs X complained about the Council’s failure to provide her son with adequate support for his special educational needs. She also complained about delay in the Education, Health and Care Plan process. We found the Council to be at fault. This caused significant distress and frustration and meant Mrs X’s son missed out on support he was entitled to. To remedy this injustice, we recommend the Council should apologise and make a payment to Mrs X.

The complaint

1. Mrs X complains about the Council’s failure to comply with statutory timescales when issuing her son’s (Y) Education, Health and Care Plan.
2. She says the consequential delay in securing a suitable special school place had a significant negative impact on her son’s development and well-being. She also suffered significant distress and frustration.

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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. When considering complaints, we make findings based on the balance of probabilities. This means that we look at the relevant available evidence and decide what was more likely to have happened.
5. 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)
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 SEND Tribunal in this decision statement.
7. Under the information sharing agreement between the Local Government and Social Care Ombudsman and the Office for Standards in Education, Children’s Services and Skills (Ofsted), we will share this decision with Ofsted.
8. 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)

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What I have and have not investigated

9. I am investigating what happened between July 2024 and July 2026. Although this latter date is after when Mrs X brought her complaint to the Ombudsman (in September 2025), I do not consider it reasonable for Mrs X to raise a new complaint with the Council about what happened since because the Council has accepted it acted with fault for this period of time, and this is supported by the case records I have bene provided with.
10. I have also exercised my discretion to investigate what happened after Mrs X lodged her appeal with the SEND Tribunal. This is because shortly afterwards, the Council agreed to name Mrs X’s chosen school in Y’s EHC Plan, and Mrs X withdrew her appeal.

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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.
12. 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

Education Health and Care Plans

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 Code is based on the Children and Families Act 2014 and the SEND Regulations 2014. It says:

• where a council receives a request for an EHC needs assessment it must give its decision within six weeks whether to agree to the assessment;
• the process of assessing a child’s needs and developing EHC Plans “must be carried out in a timely manner”. Steps must be completed as soon as practicable; and
• 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.

15. As part of the EHC assessment councils must gather advice from relevant professionals (SEND 2014 Regulations, Regulation 6(1)). This includes advice and information from an Educational Psychologist (EP). It must also seek advice and information from other professionals requested by the parent, if it considers it is reasonable to do so. Those consulted have six weeks to provide the advice.

What happened

16. Below is a summary of the key events leading to this investigation. It is not an exhaustive chronology of every exchange between parties. Where necessary, I have expanded on some of these events in the “Analysis” section of this decision statement.
17. Mrs X’s son, Y, is of primary school age with SEN. In 2024, he attended School P, a mainstream school. School P requested an EHC needs assessment in May 2024. The Council initially refused, but shortly before mediation was due to start, agreed to assess in July 2024. The Council issued a draft EHC Plan in May 2025. Mrs X expressed a preference for Y to attend a special school, specifically School D. She was of the firmly held belief that Y’s SEN could not be met in a mainstream school. In July 2025, the Council consulted with several schools, including School P and School D. All consulted schools said they were unable provide a place.
18. The Council issued a final EHC Plan in October 2025. This named School P. Mrs X immediately lodged an appeal with the SEND Tribunal challenging this decision. The following month, having reconsulted with School D, the Council agreed to name School D in Y’s EHC Plan. However, a place was not available until September 2026. In the meantime, Y the Council said the best option was for Y to remain at School P, either because they were full or unable to provide for Y’s SEN
19. Mrs X first complained to the Council in November 2024, primarily about delay in the EHC Plan process. She made further complaints in June and July 2025, because of the continued delay and other related matters.

The Council’s complaint response

20. In response to Mrs X’s complaint, the Council:

• upheld the complaint;
• accepted there was unacceptable delay in the EHC Plan process. The final EHC Plan should have been issued in September 2024. Contributory factors for the delay were the nationwide shortage in educational psychologists and unprecedented demand upon the SEN service;
• accepted key information was not included in the initial draft Plan. This contributed towards further delay;
• accepted there was inadequate communication with Mrs X;
• apologised and offered a payment of £500 in recognition of the distress caused by the delay; and
• explained the action it was taking to address the capacity issues within the SEN service. This included improvements to communication with parents, managing staff absences and increasing staffing and resources.

21. Dissatisfied with this outcome and frustrated by the lack of final EHC Plan, Mrs X brought her complaint to the Ombudsman in September 2025. She explained how the delay in the EHC Plan process had directly impacted on the Council’s failure to secure a suitable, special school place for Y until September 2026. She says that although Y continued to attend School P, it was unable to properly support his SEN and this has negatively affected his educational, physical and emotional well-being. Despite her asking for additional support in February 2026, the Council continued to not respond to emails and failed to provide Y with any extra help. Instead, Mrs X felt she had no choice but to source and fund this herself at considerable expense.
22. In response to my enquiries the Council:

• confirmed a final EHC Plan was issued in October 2025;
• explained it had named School P in the Final Plan because no other schools were able to accept him for the start of the Autumn term 2025. Remaining in the roll would at least allow him to continue to attend school, until a more suitable placement was secured;
• acknowledged there was a lack of recorded discussions with School P about its SEN provision and whether it was able to meet Y’s needs. This meant the Council was unable to comment on what, if any, additional support was available for Y whilst he remained at School P;
• accepted that delay in the EHC Plan process, including consultations with schools, meant Y was not offered a suitable school place in 2025; and
• offered to increase the symbolic remedy payment from £500 to £1500.

Analysis

23. To the Council’s credit, in response to my enquiries and Mrs X’s complaint, the Council has accepted it acted with fault in several areas and that Y had been let down by the system. I agree. It has also reflected on what went wrong and identified several areas of service improvement. I welcome this.
24. I will set out assessment of the separate areas of what went wrong for Mrs X and Y below.
25. We expect councils to follow statutory timescales set out in the law and the Code. We are likely to find fault where there are significant breaches of those timescales.
26. The timescale for an EHC needs assessment, including issuing a final EHC Plan, is 20 weeks.
27. The EHC Plan should have been issued in mid-September 2024. The final Plan was not issued until October 2025. This was a delay of over a year.
28. During this long delay, it clear from the case records I have seen that Mrs X not notified of the anticipated timeline or kept informed what was happening about the progression of the matter.
29. The significant delay and lack of communication was fault. I am satisfied this caused Mrs X significant distress and frustration. This injustice requires a remedy.
30. It is clear from my own conversation with Mrs X, and from the case records I have seen, that the personal injustice arising these faults was significant and far-reaching for both Y and Mrs X. Had the Council complied with the statutory timescale, I am satisfied, on balance of probabilities, that Y would have secured a special school place much sooner than 2026. I find it likely that he would have been offered a place a year sooner. By the Council’s own admittance, there is a lack of case records about SEN provision for Y at School P. However, I have been provided with an email from School P to the Council in December 2025, that supports Mrs X’s submission that it was struggling to provide support that Y needed and was set out in his EHC Plan. My conclusion from this is that Y, although he received some education and SEN support for two years, it is more probable than not, that it was not the level specialist support he was entitled for the six academic terms between September 2024 and July 2026.
31. I have considered our guidance on remedies. It says where fault has resulted in a loss of special educational provision, we will usually recommend a remedy payment within a range per term to acknowledge the harm caused by that loss. I have taken account of the factors laid out in the guidance and Mrs X’s comments about the impact of the loss of provision on Y.
32. I have decided to recommend a payment of £750 per term for each of the six terms missed of missed/inadequate provision
33. This is intended to remedy the total injustice caused to Mrs X and Y from the missing provision, including the cost of the additional tuition that Mrs X sourced privately.

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Agreed action

34. Within four weeks from the date of my final decision, the Council agreed to take the following action.
1. Apologise to Mrs X for the injustice caused by the above faults. 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.
2. Pay Mrs X £500 as a symbolic payment to acknowledge her distress and frustration caused by the delay in the EHC Plan process, poor communication and delaying her right of appeal.
3. Pay Mrs X £4500 as a symbolic payment to acknowledge the loss of educational provision between September 2024 and July 2026.
35. I have not recommended a service improvement in this case. While I have identified fault in the Council’s delay in the EHC Plan process, poor communication and securing Y’s provision, these issues form part of wider systemic concerns in the Council’s SEN service which it has already recognised and sought to improve.
36. The Council should provide us with evidence it has complied with the above actions.

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Final decision

37. I find fault causing injustice. The Council has agreed to take action to remedy the injustice to Mrs X. On this basis, I have completed my investigation.

Investigator’s decision on behalf of the Ombudsman

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Investigator's decision on behalf of the Ombudsman