Summary: We will not investigate this complaint about the financial support provided to the complainant’s child’s educational setting. This is because there is insufficient evidence of injustice caused to the complainant by the Council’s actions to warrant our intervention.

The complaint

1. The complainant, Mrs X, complains that the Council failed to provide the appropriate financial support to her child’s educational setting to make his special educational needs provision.

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The Ombudsman’s role and powers

2. 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 fault has not caused injustice to the person who complained, or
• any injustice is not significant enough to justify our involvement.

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

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How I considered this complaint

3. I considered information provided by the complainant and the Council.
4. I considered the Ombudsman’s Assessment Code.

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My assessment

5. Mrs X’s child has an Education Health and Care (EHC) plan which was issued in October 2023, while he was attending nursery. He left the nursery in August 2024.
6. Mrs X complains that the nursery did not receive funding from the Council to support the delivery of the EHC plan provision. She says, and the complaint correspondence confirms, that the Council failed to ensure that appropriate payment was made to the nursery.
7. The Council has said that it has now made the payment, and that the nursery has confirmed that it made the appropriate provision for Mrs X’s son. It has apologised to Mrs X for the confusion and concern the matter caused her.
8. The Ombudsman will not investigate Mrs X’s complaint. This is because there is insufficient evidence to show that fault on the Council’s part has caused her a significant injustice. The content of the EHC plan was for the Council to secure and the educational placement to provide. The appropriate funding was a matter between the Council and the nursery and, if insufficient funding was made available, it was for the nursery to take this up with the Council.
9. There is no evidence that the nursery failed to make the EHC provision, or that it brought the financial shortfall to the Council’s attention. There is therefore no identifiable causal link between the fault on the Council’s part and injustice caused to Mrs X. That being the case, there are insufficient grounds to warrant the Ombudsman’s intervention.

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Final decision

10. We will not investigate Mrs X’s complaint because there is insufficient evidence of injustice caused by fault on the Council’s part to warrant investigation.

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Investigator's decision on behalf of the Ombudsman