Summary: We will not investigate this complaint about the Council’s delay issuing an Education, Health and Care Plan and lack of education provision. This is because the complaint is late.

The complaint

1. Ms X complains the Council failed to issue an Education, Health and Care Plan for her son ahead of him starting secondary school and failed to ensure he had the right support in place.
2. Ms X said because of this, her son missed out on schooling, social interaction and was caused distress. Ms X said she was caused financial hardship as she had to stop working.
3. Ms X wants the Council to fund private tutoring to make up for the provision her son missed, activities to make up for the social interaction he missed and reimburse her for lost income.

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The Ombudsman’s role and powers

4. We cannot investigate late complaints unless we decide there are good reasons. Late complaints are when someone takes more than twelve months to complain to us about something a council/care provider has done. (Local Government Act 1974, sections 26B and 34D, as amended)
5. We investigate complaints about ‘maladministration’ and ‘service failure’, which we call ‘fault’. We must also consider whether any fault has had an adverse impact on the person making the complaint, which we call ‘injustice’. We provide a free service, but must use public money carefully. We do not start or continue an investigation if we decide there is no worthwhile outcome achievable by our investigation. (Local Government Act 1974, section 24A(6), as amended, section 34(B))

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How I considered this complaint

6. I considered information provided by Ms X and the Council.
7. I considered the Ombudsman’s Assessment Code.

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My assessment

8. Ms X asked the Council to assess her son for an Education, Health and Care (EHC) Plan in January 2024.
9. The Council decided he needed an EHC Plan and so it had twenty weeks to issue the final Plan (by late May 2024). The Council did not meet this deadline.
10. Ms X’s son then started secondary school in September 2024, on a reduced timetable which Ms X said was unsuitable and still without an EHC Plan.
11. Ms X did not complain to the Council about the delay issuing the EHC Plan or about the education her son had missed until September 2025. This concluded the Council’s complaints process in November 2025, which is when Ms X complained to the Ombudsman.
12. When the Council did issue a final EHC Plan for her son, Ms X did not agree with the contents and appealed this to the Tribunal. This appeal is still underway.
13. Ms X took more than twelve months to complain to us about the Council’s actions. I do not consider there were any good reasons Ms X did not complain to us sooner about these issues and so we will not investigate them further. Events have moved on significantly since then and so it is also unlikely that further investigation by us would lead to a worthwhile outcome.

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Final decision

14. We will not investigate Ms X’s complaint because it is late and there are no good reasons she did not complain sooner.

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Investigator's decision on behalf of the Ombudsman