Summary: We will not investigate this complaint about the Council’s decision to only include recent documents as annexes to an Education, Health and Care plan. This is because there is insufficient evidence of injustice to warrant further investigation.

The complaint

1. Mr X complains the Council has failed to include all annexes in section K of his son’s Education, Health and Care (EHC) plan.
2. He says this means this information will not be available to anybody implementing the plan which could affect their understanding of his son’s needs. He also feels it compromised the co-production process and any appeal.

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The Ombudsman’s role and powers

3. The Local Government Act 1974 sets out our powers but also imposes restrictions on what we can investigate.
4. 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 any injustice is not significant enough to justify our involvement.

(Local Government Act 1974, section 24A(6), as amended, section 34(B))

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How I considered this complaint

5. I considered information provided by the complainant and the Council.
6. I considered the Ombudsman’s Assessment Code.

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My assessment

7. The Council issued Mr X with a draft EHC plan for his son following an annual review. It did not contain all relevant annexes in section K. He raised this with the Council, and it issued a second draft and provided all relevant annexes to Mr X. In response to Mr X’s complaint the Council said it includes annexes relevant to the changes being made at the annual review.
8. We will not investigate Mr X’s complaint about the information contained in section K of the EHC plan. The Council provided Mr X with copies of the documents within three weeks of it issuing the draft. I do not consider any injustice caused by this delay to be sufficient to warrant further investigation. Further no practitioners have raised any concerns they do not have enough information to understand his son’s needs. This is therefore a potential injustice that has not happened and may never happen. Neither Mr X nor his son has been affected by this. This injustice is insufficient to warrant investigation.

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Final decision

9. We will not investigate Mr X’s complaint because there is insufficient injustice to warrant investigation.

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Investigator's decision on behalf of the Ombudsman