Summary: The Council delayed completing Miss X’s child, Y’s Education, Health and Care (EHC) needs assessment in line with statutory timescales. It delayed deciding whether to issue Y with an EHC Plan within the statutory timescales, caused by a 46 week delay in obtaining Educational Psychologist advice. It then further delayed issuing Y’s final EHC Plan by 25 weeks after it received the EP advice. The Council acknowledged the delays and made a payment for the injustice caused to Miss X and Y. It agreed to make a further payment to fully recognise the one term delay in Y’s access to the specialist provision and placement specified in the final Plan.

The complaint

1. Miss X complained the Council delayed completing her child, Y’s Education, Health and Care (EHC) needs assessment which subsequently caused a significant delay in issuing the final EHC Plan.
2. Miss X said the matter has caused distress and uncertainty and impacted on Y’s education and development.

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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. 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)
5. 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)
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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How I considered this complaint

7. I considered evidence provided by Miss X and the Council as well as relevant law, policy and guidance.
8. Miss 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

9. 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.
10. 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.

11. 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

12. Miss X has a child, Y who has a diagnosis of autism and has a range of mental health issues. Y attended a mainstream secondary school and was due to begin post 16 education from September 2024.
13. In March 2024 Miss X asked the Council to carry out an EHC needs assessment for Y to help them be supported in the college environment. The Council wrote to Miss X in April 2024 agreeing to carry out the need assessment. On the same day the Council requested EP advice. In line with statutory timescales the Council should have decided whether to issue Y with an EHC Plan by mid-July 2024 and then issued a final EHC Plan by mid-August 2024.
14. Y began attending a mainstream college (College A) in September 2024 where they remained for the duration of the 2024/25 academic year. College A chased the Council for an update on Y’s EHC Plan in the autumn term. The Council explained the delay was due to a backlog of EP advice requests. The Council said Y experienced difficulties at College A and had reduced attendance due to their mental health difficulties.
15. The EP wrote their report for the EHC needs assessment and provided the Council with it at the end of April 2025. This was a delay of 46 weeks.
16. The Council wrote to Miss X at the start of May 2025 to notify her of its decision to issue Y with an EHC Plan.
17. Miss X complained to the Council in July 2025 about the ongoing delays with Y’s EHC needs assessment. The Council responded the same month apologising for the delays which it blamed on high volumes of EHC needs assessment requests.
18. Miss X escalated her complaint to stage two of the complaints procedure as she remained without a draft Plan.
19. Records show the Council issued a draft EHC Plan in July 2025 and consulted with various mainstream placements, including College A all of which said could not meet Y’s needs.
20. The Council issue Miss X with a final complaint response in August 2025. It proposed to pay Miss X £100 for each month of the delays which at the time it calculated as £1200.
21. Y was unable to attend College A from September 2025 and remained out of education for the autumn term.
22. Miss X remained unhappy and complained to us.
23. In October 2025, College B responded to a consultation that it could meet Y’s needs. The Council issued Y’s final EHC Plan in December 2025 naming College B.
24. Y began attending College B from January 2026.

The Council’s response to us

25. The Council accepted significant delays in completing Y’s EHC needs assessment and issuing their final EHC Plan. It said this was caused by shortages of EPs and demand.
26. The Council said it paid Miss X a total of £1600 in January 2026 to acknowledge the injustice caused by the EHC needs assessment delays.
27. The Council has an ongoing SEND action plan in place which also addresses the delays in its EHC needs assessment process. Action being taken includes
• recruitment and expansion of SEND Team and Educational Psychology capacity;
• use of commissioned Educational Psychology resource where necessary;
• strengthened performance monitoring of statutory timescales;
• improved oversight of cases awaiting professional advice;
• development of recovery plans to reduce assessment backlogs; and
• ongoing monitoring through SEND service improvement arrangements.

My findings

28. 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.
29. Following Miss X’s request for an EHC needs assessment the Council should have made the decision whether to issue a Plan by the start of mid-July 2024 and then subsequently issued the final Plan by mid-August 2024.
30. The EP report should have been available to the Council by the end of May 2024 in order for it to have met the July deadline. The EP report was not complete until the April 2025 which was a delay of 46 weeks and fault. It caused a delay in the Council deciding whether to issue Y with an EHC Plan. This service failure came about due to the Council being unable to recruit enough EPs to meet demand and a backlog of cases.
31. However, the delay in obtaining EP advice was not the only reason for the delay in issuing Y’s final EHC Plan. With EP advice in hand the Council should have issued Y’s final Plan by mid-June 2025. It did not do so until December 2025 which is a further delay of 25 weeks which is fault.
32. In total the Council took 89 weeks (over 20 months) to assess Y and issue the final EHC Plan instead of the 20 weeks statutory timescales due to the delay in obtaining EP advice and because of backlogs and staffing issues in its SEND service.
33. The delays caused both Y and Miss X an injustice. Had the Council issued Y’s EHC Plan in a timely manner once it had EP advice in hand it is likely, on balance that they would have had it in place to begin attending College B from September 2025. This further delay meant Y lost access to the specialist provision in the EHC Plan for one term between September and December 2025.
34. The Council has already paid Miss X £1600. This payment acknowledges the injustice caused by the service failure (delay in obtaining EP advice) and partially remedies the missed provision. I have made an additional recommendation below to ensure the Council fully remedies Y’s lost provision between September and December 2025.
35. As outlined above the Council already has an ongoing action and improvement plan to reduce the backlog in the EHC needs assessment process. This includes ongoing recruitment of EPs and SEN case officers. We are continuing to monitor the Council’s ongoing work to reduce the backlog through our casework so I have not made a further service improvement with regards to EHC needs assessment delays.

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Action

36. Within one month of the final decision the Council agreed to apologise to Miss X and pay her £900 to acknowledge Y’s loss of specialist provision in line with their EHC Plan between September and December 2025 which was caused by the delay in issuing the final EHC Plan following Y’s EHC needs assessment. We publish guidance on remedies which sets out our expectations for how organisations should apologise effectively to remedy injustice. The Council should consider this guidance in making the apology I have recommended.
37. The Council should provide us with evidence it has complied with the above actions.

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Decision

38. I find found causing injustice and the Council agreed to my recommendation to remedy that injustice.

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Investigator's decision on behalf of the Ombudsman