Summary: We will not investigate this complaint about the Council’s handling of Miss X’s application for an Education, Health and Care Plan. This is because the Council has apologised to Miss X and offered her £900 in recognition of the impact of its actions and this provides a suitable remedy for the complaint.

The complaint

1. Miss X complains the Council made errors in dealing with her application for an Education, Health and Care (EHC) Plan and delayed in making and informing her of its decision not to carry out an assessment.

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The Ombudsman’s role and powers

2. We investigate complaints about ‘maladministration’ and ‘service failure’. In this statement, I have used the word fault to refer to these. 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)
3. The Local Government Act 1974 sets out our powers but also imposes restrictions on what we can investigate.
4. The law says we cannot normally investigate a complaint when someone has a right of appeal, reference or review to a tribunal about the same matter. However, we may decide to investigate if we consider it would be unreasonable to expect the person to use this right. (Local Government Act 1974, section 26(6)(a), as amended)
5. The First-tier Tribunal (Special Educational Needs and Disability) considers appeals against council decisions regarding special educational needs. We refer to it as the Tribunal in this decision statement.

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How I considered this complaint

6. I considered information provided by Miss X’s representative (Mr Y) and the Council.
7. I considered the Ombudsman’s Assessment Code.

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My assessment

8. There are strict timescales for councils to consider requests for EHC Plans and to decide whether to carry out an assessment. The Council has six weeks from the date of the application to make its decision.
9. The Council received Miss X’s request for an EHC Plan on 6 March 2025 and decided on 6 May 2025 not to carry out an assessment. However, Miss X did not receive the Council’s decision until late July 2025. The Council accepts fault on this issue and acknowledges delay amounting to approximately 15 weeks.
10. The Council also accepts it failed to respond to Miss X’s correspondence between March 2025 and July 2025 and upheld Miss X’s complaints about administrative issues including quoting an incorrect application date and referring to her using the wrong surname.
11. In recognition of the fault and its impact on Miss X and Mr Y the Council apologised and offered Miss X a payment of £900. Mr Y says this amount is insufficient and believes the Council should pay more than £3,500.
12. I am however satisfied the Council’s offer provides a suitable remedy for the injustice caused and that it is unlikely further investigation is likely to achieve significantly more.
13. This is in part because we cannot consider the impact of the Council’s decision to refuse an assessment as this decision carried a right of appeal which it would have been reasonable for Miss X to use.
14. Mr Y confirms Miss X left her educational setting in September 2024 and while I appreciate he says this was due to a lack of support I cannot say the delay and failure to respond to Miss X resulted in a loss of education. I cannot therefore justify a larger financial remedy than the Council has already offered.
15. I note Mr Y has also raised concerns about delay by the Council from August 2025, when it agreed to carry out an assessment, but this was not part of the original complaint to the Council and the Council has not therefore had a reasonable opportunity to respond to it, as required by law. Should Miss X/Mr Y wish to pursue this complaint further they would need to raise the matter with the Council in the first instance. If, once they have exhausted the Council’s complaints procedure they remain unsatisfied, they may bring the complaint back to us and we will consider whether to investigate it.

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Final decision

16. We will not investigate this complaint. This is because the Council has offered a suitable remedy and it is unlikely further investigation would achieve significantly more.

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Investigator's decision on behalf of the Ombudsman