Summary: The Council was at fault. It failed to complete Ms X’s child, Y’s Education, Health and Care needs assessment within statutory timescales due to a shortage in Educational Psychologists. This service failure caused Ms X and Y uncertainty, avoidable distress and frustration. The Council agreed to apologise and make a payment to Ms X and Y to remedy their injustice.

The complaint

1. Ms X complained the Council failed to complete her child, Y’s Education, Health and Care (EHC) needs assessment within the statutory timescales between August 2024 and October 2025. She also raised concerns about poor communication, factual inaccuracies in the Council’s responses, and delays in responding within its published timescales.
2. She said these failings caused her and Y avoidable distress and negatively affected both their health and Y’s education. It further caused her financial hardship as she had to secure and fund Y's lessons herself from September 2025. She wants the Council to apologise, issue Y's EHC Plan, secure the provision in the plan, and reimburse her the costs of Y’s lessons.

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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. 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)
5. 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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What I have and have not investigated

6. I have investigated what happened between August 2024 and October 2025 when the Council issued its final complaint response and Ms X complained to us.
7. I have investigated matters that happened after the Council’s final response to Ms X in October 2025 because I consider they are matters of continuing fault and injustice, and I have sufficient evidence to reach a sound and balanced decision.
8. We provide a free service, but must use public money carefully. We do not start or continue an investigation if we decide any injustice is not significant enough to justify our involvement. (Local Government Act 1974, section 24A(6), as amended, section 34(B)). I have not investigated Ms X’s part of her complaint about the Council’s poor complaint handling. Instead, we collect information about particularly poor complaint handling practice and report this back to organisations. (Local Government Act 1974, section 24A(6), section 34B(8))

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How I considered this complaint

9. I considered evidence provided by Ms X and the Council as well as relevant law, policy and guidance.
10. Ms 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

EHC Plan 

11. 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. 

Timescales and process for EHC assessment 

12. 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);

Content of an EHC Plan

13. The EHC Plan is set out in sections which include: 

• Section F: The special educational provision needed by the child or the young person. 
• Section I: The name and / or type of educational placement 

What happened

Background

14. Ms X has a child, Y, who has a medical condition causing severe physical and mental fatigue. Y stopped attending their mainstream secondary school, school M, in January 2023. School M initially placed Y on a reduced timetable before making a referral to the Council for a place at an alternative medical provision setting, setting S. From January 2024, Y received 20-minute lessons of Maths and English tuition at home which was delivered by setting S. This slowly increased to three hours of lessons per week by the end of the summer term in line with Y’s abilities.

Matters subject to investigation

15. In August 2024 Ms X submitted a request for the Council to carry out Y’s EHC needs assessment.
16. In early September at the start of the 24/25 academic year Y was due to attend lessons at setting S rather than tuition at home. However, Y was unable to cope and as a result attended lessons partly at setting S and some lessons via home tutoring. At this stage as it became clear Y was unable to achieve the required academic workload, discussions started between setting S and Y’s family for Y to repeat year eleven.
17. In September 2024 the Council decided not to assess Y and signposted Ms X to appeal to the Tribunal if she disagreed with its decision.
18. Shortly afterwards Ms X made a mediation request in preparation to appeal to the Tribunal. At the same time she also reached out to a local special educational needs and disabilities (SEND) information and advice service, organisation B for support.
19. In early October at a meeting with the Council, a representative of organisation B and school M, Ms X described the impact of Y’s condition on their life and ability to learn.
20. A week after the meeting, the Council decided to assess Y and said it would complete Y’s EHC needs assessment and decide whether to issue an EHC Plan by 16 January 2025. As a result, Ms X decided to retract her mediation request. The same day the Council requested advice from an Educational Psychologist (EP) to inform Y’s EHC needs assessment.
21. In December 2024 school M and the Council reached an agreement for Y to repeat year eleven.
22. In early July 2025 Ms X complained to the Council about the ongoing delay in Y’s EHC needs assessment process. Ms X said it was delaying her right to appeal to the Tribunal should she be unhappy about the EHC Plan.
23. In early July setting S informed Ms X, it did not have capacity to provide any specialist provisions for Y from September 2025 onwards.
24. Late in July 2025 the Council responded to Ms X’s complaint. It said its deadline to decide whether to issue Y with an EHC Plan was in January 2025. However, it apologised it failed to meet this deadline due to a high number of needs assessment requests and its EP team was struggling to assess children. The Council further said it planned to recruit several new posts in the EP team which will reduce waiting times.
25. In August 2025 Ms X escalated her complaint to the Council’s stage two of its complaints process.
26. Between September and December 2025 Y received home tuition via an online service funded by Ms X. School M also provided some 1:1 tutoring for Y.
27. In October, the Council responded to Ms X at stage two of its complaints process. It upheld her complaint regarding delays in the EHC needs assessment process and offered Ms X and Y £150 as a remedy for the injustice caused. Ms X subsequently told us that she did not accept the payment offered. The Council also confirmed that Y stopped attending setting S at the end of the 2024/25 academic year, as they were no longer of a compulsory school age. The Council concluded that as a result, it no longer had a duty to provide alternative provision for Y during the 2025/26 academic year.
28. Unhappy about the Council’s response, Ms X complained to us.
29. In early November the Council allocated an EP and received their report in early December.
30. About three weeks later it issued Y’s draft EHC Plan.
31. The Council issued Y’s final EHC Plan in January 2026 naming school M in Section I as Y’s placement. It then issued an amended final EHC Plan in February 2026. Ms X told us school M took over the funding of Y’s home tuitions from January 2026 onwards.
32. Since then, Y received four hours per week of private home tutoring and two lessons per week at school M - funded by school M as part of Y’s EHC Plan.
33. Once Y’s EHC Plan was in place, Ms X asked the Council to reimburse her the costs she incurred in securing and privately funding Y’s home tuition between September and December 2025.
34. Following our enquiries the Council told us it had approved Ms X’s reimbursement request in July 2026 and refunded the family £2,740.50 which Ms X confirmed she had received.

My findings

35. We expect councils to follow statutory timescales set out in the law and the Code. We are likely to find fault where there are breaches of those timescales.
36. After initially deciding not to assess Y, the Council reversed its decision and agreed to assess Y in October 2024. It should therefore have decided whether to issue an EHC Plan by mid-December 2024 and, if so, issued the final plan by mid-January 2025. The EP report should have been available by the end of November 2024 to meet this deadline. However, it was not completed until the start of December 2025, a delay of over 12 months. This was fault and delayed the Council’s decision whether to issue an EHC Plan. This service failure came about due to the Council’s high volume of assessment requests and its limited availability of EPs.
37. Once it received the EP advice, the Council needed to decide whether to issue an EHC Plan within four weeks, by the end of December 2025, and, if so, issue the final plan within a further four weeks, by the end of January 2026. The Council issued Y’s final EHC Plan in mid-January 2026. This was within the statutory timeframe following receipt of the EP report and, as a result, there was no fault.
38. The Council said it was addressing the EP shortage through recruitment efforts. We will continue to monitor progress of this through our casework and so, further service improvement recommendations are not required at this time.
39. The delay in issuing Y’s EHC Plan caused Y and Ms X uncertainty, avoidable distress and frustration for which the Council apologised and offered to make a payment of £150 to remedy the injustice the delay caused. I find this payment offer was not in line with our guidance and as a result was not suitable to remedy the uncertainty the delay caused to Ms X and Y.
40. However, the delay in completing the EHC needs assessment process did not cause Y or Ms X any injustice beyond uncertainty, avoidable distress and frustration. Between January and July 2025, Y received home tutoring and specialist provision from setting S. Between September and December 2025, Y received home tutoring funded by Ms X and some provision at school M. The delay therefore did not result in Y missing an opportunity to receive specialist provision in line with their EHC Plan, and the Council has since reimbursed the costs of the home tutoring she funded.

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Action

41. Within one month of the final decision the Council agreed to take the following action:
1. Apologise to and make a payment of £1,200 to Ms X and Y in recognition of the distress and uncertainty caused by the 12-months delay in deciding whether to issue Y’s EHC Plan as a result of the delay receiving the EP report.

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.

42. The Council should provide us with evidence it has complied with the above action.

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Decision

43. I have found fault and the Council agreed to remedy the injustice caused by the fault.

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Investigator's decision on behalf of the Ombudsman