Summary: We will not investigate Miss X’s complaint about delays in the Education Health and Care Plan process. This is because the Council has agreed to apologise to Miss X and pay her £100 per month for the delay. We consider this an appropriate remedy and further investigation is therefore unlikely to achieve anything more.

The complaint

1. Miss X complains the Council failed to complete the Education, Health and Care (EHC) needs assessment process for her son, Y, in accordance with the statutory deadlines. Miss X requested an assessment on 24 March 2025 but the Council has not yet completed the process or decided whether to issue Y an EHC Plan.

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The Ombudsman’s role and powers

2. We investigate complaints of injustice caused by ‘maladministration’  and ‘service failure’. I have used the word fault to refer to these. Service failure can happen when an organisation fails to provide a service as it should have done because of circumstances outside its control. We do not need to show any blame, intent, flawed policy or process, or bad faith by an organisation to say service failure (fault) has occurred. (Local Government Act 1974, sections 26(1), as amended)
3. 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)

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How I considered this complaint

4. I considered information provided by Miss X and the Council.
5. I considered the Ombudsman’s Assessment Code.
6. 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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My assessment

7. There are timescales for each stage of the EHC needs assessment process. Councils must consider requests for assessments and decide if they will carry out an assessment within six weeks. They then have a further 10 weeks to decide if they will issue an EHC Plan and if they do, they have a further four weeks to finalise it. The whole process must not exceed 20 weeks.
8. In this case the Council considered Miss X’s request for an assessment but decided it was not necessary. Miss X disputed this decision with the Council and the Council reconsidered the request and agreed to carry out an assessment on 13 May 2025. We cannot consider any delay caused by the original decision not to carry out an assessment as this carried a right of appeal to the First Tier Tribunal which it would have been reasonable for Miss X to use. I have therefore focused my attention on the time taken by the Council to complete the process after 13 May 2025.
9. Once the Council decided to carry out an assessment it should have completed the process and told Miss X if it intended to issue Y an EHC Plan by 22 July 2025. If it decided to issue a Plan, it should have finalised this by 19 August 2025. But to date the Council has not reached a decision about whether to issue Y an EHC Plan.
10. The Council has accepted delay in completing Y’s assessment and deciding whether to issue him an EHC Plan. It has explained that a lack of Educational Psychologists has contributed to the delay. The failure to issue a decision amounts to service failure.
11. We are satisfied the Council is taking action to deal with the issues caused by a lack of Educational Psychologists. In response to our findings in a previous case it sent us an action plan of its service improvements.
12. We do however accept the Council’s delays caused Miss X and Y frustration and uncertainty and that this injustice remains unremedied. We have therefore invited the Council to provide a remedy to Miss X and Y and the Council, to its credit, has agreed to our proposal.

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Agreed actions

13. The Council has agreed to the following actions to remedy Miss X’s complaint:

• Apologise to Miss X for the delay in the EHC Plan process;
• Pay Miss X £100 for each month of delay to date and for a maximum of six months from the date of this decision (until 19 July 2026).
• If the Council decides to issue an EHC Plan the delay should remedy should be calculated from 19 August 2025. If the Council decides not to issue a plan, the remedy should be calculated from 22 July 2025.

14. The Council will make this payment within four weeks of issuing Miss X the EHC Plan, notifying her of its decision not to issue an EHC Plan, or from 19 July 2026 (whichever comes first).
15. I consider the remedy agreed by the Council is suitable and that it is taking steps to address the issue at the heart of this complaint. It is therefore unlikely investigation would achieve anything more for Miss X.
16. In the event the delay continues beyond 19 July 2026 we would expect Miss X to make a new complaint to the Council. Once the complaint has exhausted the Council’s complaints process, and in the event Miss X remains unhappy, she may refer the complaint to us and we will consider whether to investigate it further. As part of this process we would consider if any further delays were due to the national shortage of Educational Psychologists or from issues elsewhere in the process. This may then warrant a further remedy.

Final decision

17. We will not investigate this complaint. This is because the Council has agreed a suitable remedy for the injustice caused by its delay.

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Investigator's decision on behalf of the Ombudsman