Summary: Miss X complains the Council did not deal with her son Y’s education properly, resulting in loss of educational provision. The Council is at fault because it delayed issuing Y’s Education Health and Care (EHC) Plan and did not consider whether it had a duty to provide s19 alternative education until after Y’s EHC plan had been finalised. Miss X suffered delayed appeal rights and Y suffered missed educational provision. The Council has already remedied the delay to Y’s EHC Plan. The Council should apologise to Miss X and make a symbolic payment to her.

The complaint

1. The complainant, whom I shall refer to as Miss X, complains the Council did not deal with her son’s education properly because:
• It delayed issuing an EHC Plan
• It did not consider making s19 alternative provision when it knew her son was not attending school
2. Miss X says her son missed educational provision.

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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 an injustice, 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 available relevant evidence and decide what was more likely to have happened.
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(i), 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

Law, guidance and policies

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 guidance is based on the Children and Families Act 2014 and the SEN Regulations 2014. It says the following: 

• Where the council receives a request for an EHC needs assessment it must decide whether to agree to the assessment and send its decision to the parent of the child or the young person within six weeks. 
• If the council decides not to conduct an EHC needs assessment it must give the child’s parent or young person information about their right to appeal to the Tribunal.
• The process of assessing needs and developing EHC Plans “must be carried out in a timely manner”. Steps must be completed as soon as practicable. 
• If the council goes on to carry out an assessment, it must decide whether to issue an EHC Plan or refuse to issue a Plan within 16 weeks.
• If the council goes on to issue an EHC Plan, 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 (unless certain specific circumstances apply);  

Section 19 duty

11. Section 19 of the Education Act 1996 says that the council must arrange suitable alternative educational provision when it finds that a child is unable to attend school because of a permanent exclusion, an illness, or for any other reason which make the school inaccessible to the child. The alternative educational provision must be suitable to the child’s age, ability and aptitude, and any special educational needs they have.
12. If a council discovers a child is absent from school for an extended period, it should consider the reasons for this, and take account of evidence from relevant parties (such as the child’s school, parents, and medical professionals). It must then decide whether it has a duty to make alternative educational provision.
13. If a council wants to see medical or other evidence, it should ask for it at the earliest opportunity. The council should account for any challenges a parent might have in obtaining evidence, and review its position based on any new evidence it receives.
14. Councils should consider any attempts the school is making to support the child. This might involve sending work home for the child to complete, arranging disability related support, placing the child on a reduced timetable, or providing online education as a short-term measure. If there is a clear, effective, and time-bound plan for reintegration then there may be no immediate role for the council in providing alternative education.
15. If the council decides it must arrange alternative provision, it needs to arrange provision based on the child’s individual needs. It should also have a review process to ensure the provision remains in the child’s best interests. Councils can decide a child cannot cope with full-time provision, especially where the reason for their non-attendance is medical. When this happens, the Council should provide reasons for the amount of provision it arranges.
16. If a child has an Education, Health and Care (EHC) Plan the council also has an ongoing duty to arrange the support guaranteed by the Plan. However, this might not always be possible, such as where the SEN support is designed for the child’s normal classroom setting.
17. Councils should also think about the steps needed to reintegrate the child back into their usual school setting, through ongoing conversations with relevant professionals and the parents.

Guide for practitioners

18. We publish good practice guidance on how we expect councils to fulfil their responsibilities to identify and arrange alternative educational provision: Supporting children out of school (October 2025)
19. Our guidance says that councils should:

• consider all the reasons for a child’s absence from school, and make a written evidence-based decision about whether it will arrange alternative education provision;
• communicate this decision as a matter of good practice to parents and where it decides not to arrange alternative education tell parents the expectations about school attendance, and the potential consequences for continued absences;
• ensure the provision meets the individual needs of the child where it decides to arrange alternative education and explain its reasons for providing a part-time education if it decides the child cannot cope with full time provision;
• keep all cases of part-time education under review with a view to increasing when the child is able;
• work with parents and schools to draw up plans to reintegrate children to their normal educational setting as soon as possible, reviewing and amending plans as necessary; and
• ensure effective channels of communication between parents, internal teams, and external bodies (such as schools, and the NHS) so that issues are dealt with promptly by the right people, and that any complaints are identified and responded to under the relevant policy.

20. Councils have some flexibility with regard to the time taken to set up alternative provision. However, they must make provision from the sixth day in exclusion cases, and they should do so in medical cases where it is clear the absence is for more than 15 school days.
21. Where councils arrange for schools or other bodies to carry out their functions on their behalf, the council remains responsible. Therefore councils should retain oversight and control to ensure their duties are properly fulfilled.

Part-time timetables

22. The DfE guidance (Working together to improve school attendance) states all pupils of compulsory school age are entitled to a full-time education. In very exceptional circumstances there may be a need for a temporary part-time timetable to meet a pupil’s individual needs. For example where a medical condition prevents a pupil from attending full-time education and a part-time timetable is considered as part of a re-integration package. A part-time timetable must not be treated as a long-term solution. 

What happened?

23. This is a brief chronology of key events. It does not contain everything I reviewed during my investigation.
24. Miss X home educated Y in September 2024 for 6 weeks. He was then placed at School A in October 2024,
25. A Specialist Teaching Service (STS) observation took place in December 2024.
26. In January 2025, School A made a referral for a Education Health and Care Needs Assessment. This included attendance information and details of a re-integration plan.
27. In February 2025, School A made a report to the Council that Y was only accessing part time education through a reduced timetable for approximately 2 hours per day.
28. In April 2025, School A made a further report to the Council that Y was only accessing part time education through a reduced timetable of 1 hour per day.
29. Miss X complained to the Council in May 2025, about the delays to Y’s EHC Plan and that he was only receiving 1 hour a day education at School A.
30. The Council responded to Miss X’s complaint at stage 1 of its complaints process in July 2025. It upheld her complaint about delays to Y’s EHC Plan. It did not address her concerns about Y’s limited education provision.
31. Miss X escalated her complaint to stage 2 of the Council’s complaints process.
32. The Council responded to Miss X’s stage 2 complaint at the end of September 2025. It offered a financial remedy for delays to Y’s EHC Plan. It identified that Miss X’s complaint about Y’s limited education provision had not been recorded or responded to at stage 1.
33. In August 2025, the Council issued a final EHC Plan for Y.

Analysis

Delays to Y’s EHC Plan

34. The Council accepted fault because Y’s EHC Plan was not completed within the required statutory timescales.
35. The Council has apologised and offered to pay Miss X £100 as a remedy for this delay. This payment has been made to Miss X.
36. I consider this to be an appropriate remedy. I have not investigated this part of Miss X’s complaint further.

Alternative education provision

37. I have seen an attendance record which shows Y’s attendance up to the date of the STS observation in December 2024. This confirms Y was accessing a part-time timetable in the afternoons.
38. The STS report dated 17 December 2025 says:
• When Y started at [School A], it became clear very quickly that he was going to really struggle to manage full days.
• Y is on a re-integration plan, however the behaviours are not improving.
• Y requires 1 or 2 members of staff at all times and there have been situations where it has taken 4 members of staff around school to make sure he is safe.
• Y currently attends school from 1pm until 3pm.
• Teaching Assistants are now saying they can’t work with him as it is such a difficult job to manage his physical needs and keep him safe.
39. The Council says when the EHCNA referral was made in January 2025, it indicated that Y was attending school in the afternoon, but that morning absence was being authorised on the basis that he required a part-time timetable in order to integrate him into school. This is consistent with the attendance record from December 2024.
40. The Council says School A’s report in February stated, “After his first full day, it was clear that [Y] was struggling. After consultation between SLT, SENDCO, class teachers and parent, a decision was made to implement a reduced timetable. We have trialled extending [Y’s] day to 12.30 until 15.15, but this was not successful and we returned to 13.00 - 15.15.”
41. The Council says School A’s report in April stated, ““[Y] is accessing a reduced timetable of 1 hour. This was reduced from 2 hours to 1 hour after discussions with the Council. This was due to concerns regarding the safety of [Y] when he is on the school site.”
42. In its response to my enquiries, the Council says:
• no referral was made to it for consideration under s19, no referral was made from Y’s family or School A; and
• “at no point between November 2024 and July 2025 did the Council make a decision that [Y] was either able, or not able, to attend school.”
• “The school were maintaining the placement as best as they could, and were of course hoping that – in time and with the right support – his behaviours would settle and that his time in school would increase. Such arrangements are often necessary for children who struggle to regulate when settling into new settings, and putting in place any further provision beyond the two hours a day that [Y] was attending for is unlikely to have aided this process. Given his conduct in school, the Council would have been unlikely to conclude that [Y] was, at the time, in a position to access more than two hours a day of provision.”
43. As the Council has confirmed it made no decision, this is a retrospective justification rather than a considered and evidence-based contemporaneous decision.
44. The Council accepts it was aware by the end of the Autumn Term 2024 that Y was only able to attend school for two hours a day, with this being driven by his behaviours within school and the difficulties that staff had in keeping him safe. The evidence supports this.
45. The Ombudsman’s practitioners guidance makes clear that If a council discovers a child is missing education, it should consider the reasons for this, make any necessary enquiries, and decide whether it has a duty to make alternative provision.
46. Regardless of the decision outcome itself, with the knowledge it had, the Council should have considered whether it had a duty to provide s19 alternative education provision for Y from December 2024. It did not do so. This is fault by the Council.
47. The available evidence shows that in December and January, the school was attempting to re-integrate Y. However, from February onwards, it is clear that these efforts were not successful, and Y’s timetable was progressively reduced.
48. The Council says, “the focus was on increasing [Y’s] time in school, with it only becoming apparent that this would not be possible as the EHC Plan was being finalised.”
49. The evidence does not support this. It was apparent that it would not be possible to increase Y’s time in school from the point in time that his timetable was being reduced, not increased.
50. The Council says, “Once the EHC Plan had been drafted and consideration was being given to provision for the 25/26 academic year, considerable discussions took place about possible options for [Y]’s education, and this ultimately led to placement for 4 hours a day, 5 days a week, at an Alternative Provider, which began in September 2025.”
51. On the balance of probabilities, if the Council had considered its s19 duty towards Y properly, it would have determined it would have provided Y with similar alternative education from February 2025. Y missed educational provision between February 2025 and September 2025. This is equivalent to one and a half terms.

Ombudsman’s Guidance on Remedies

52. Where fault has resulted in a loss of educational provision, we will usually recommend a remedy payment of between £900 and £2,400 per term to acknowledge the impact of that loss. The figure should be based on the impact on the child and take account of factors such as:
• the child’s special educational needs;
• any educational provision – full-time or part-time, without some or all of the specified support – that was made during the period; and
• whether additional provision can now remedy some or all of the loss.
53. The symbolic payment is intended to remedy injustice caused to the child from missing provision, as well as the normal range of consequential injustice also caused to the family due to this fault, for example; the additional caring responsibilities that occur from a child being out of education and avoidable disruption to daily routine.
54. I have considered all the information available to me about Y, including that provided by Mrs X, when deciding on an appropriate remedy.

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Action

55. To remedy the outstanding injustice caused by the fault I have identified, the Council should take the following action within 2 months of my final decision:
• Apologise to Miss X for the fault found. 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.
• Pay Miss X £2,700 in respect of missed educational provision between February 2025 and July 2025, at a rate of £1,800 per term for one and a half terms.
• Review the circumstances of this case and provide an action plan addressing its failure to properly consider s19 alternative education provision.
56. The Council should provide us with evidence it has complied with the above actions.

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Decision

57. I find fault causing injustice. The Council has agreed actions to remedy injustice.

Investigator’s decision on behalf of the Ombudsman

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Investigator's decision on behalf of the Ombudsman