Summary: We will not investigate Miss X’s complaint about delays in the Education Health and Care Plan process. This is because the Council has agreed to apologise to Miss X and pay her £100 per month for the delay. We consider this an appropriate remedy and further investigation is therefore unlikely to achieve anything more.

The complaint

1. Mrs X complains the Council failed to complete the Education, Health and Care (EHC) needs assessment process for her son, Y, in accordance with the statutory deadlines. Miss X requested an assessment on 21 August 2025 but the Council has not yet completed the process or decided whether to issue Y an EHC Plan. 

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The Ombudsman’s role and powers

2. We investigate complaints of injustice caused by ‘maladministration’ and ‘service failure’. I have used the word fault to refer to these. Service failure can happen when an organisation fails to provide a service as it should have done because of circumstances outside its control. We do not need to show any blame, intent, flawed policy or process, or bad faith by an organisation to say service failure (fault) has occurred. (Local Government Act 1974, sections 26(1), as amended)
3. 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)

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How I considered this complaint

4. I considered information provided by Miss X and the Council.
5. I considered the Ombudsman’s Assessment Code.
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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My assessment

7. The Council must carry out needs assessments and give notice of its decision about whether to issue an EHC Plan within 16 weeks from the date of the request for an assessment. If it decides to issue an EHC Plan it must do so within 20 weeks. It should therefore have told Miss X if it intended to issue Y an EHC Plan by 11 December 2025 and, if it decided to issue a Plan, it should have finalised this by 8 January 2026.
8. To date the Council has not reached a decision about whether to issue Y an EHC Plan and can provide no timescale for its decision on this point.
9. The Council has accepted delay in completing Y’s assessment and deciding whether to issue him an EHC Plan. It has explained that a lack of Educational Psychologists has contributed to the delay, although I note Miss X says it failed to deal with her initial request for unrelated reasons. Whatever the cause, the failure to issue a decision amounts to service failure and the impact on Miss X and Y is the same.
10. We are satisfied the Council is taking action to deal with the issues caused by the lack of Educational Psychologists but acknowledge its delays caused Miss X and Y frustration and uncertainty and that this injustice remains unremedied. We have therefore invited the Council to provide a remedy to Miss X and Y and the Council, to its credit, has agreed to our proposal.

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Agreed actions

11. The Council has agreed to the following actions to remedy Miss X’s complaint:
12. Apologise to Miss X for the delay in the EHC Plan process;
13. Pay Miss X £100 for each month of delay to date and for a maximum of six months from the date of this decision (until 15 December 2026).
14. If the Council decides to issue an EHC Plan the delay should remedy should be calculated from 8 January 2026. If the Council decides not to issue a plan, the remedy should be calculated from 11 December 2025.
15. The Council will make this payment within four weeks of issuing Miss X the EHC Plan, notifying her of its decision not to issue an EHC Plan, or from 15 December 2026 (whichever comes first).
16. I consider the remedy agreed by the Council is suitable and that it is taking steps to address the issue at the heart of this complaint. It is therefore unlikely investigation would achieve anything more for Miss X.
17. In the event the delay continues beyond 15 December 2026 we would expect Miss X to make a new complaint to the Council. Once the complaint has exhausted the Council’s complaints process, and in the event Miss X remains unhappy, she may refer the complaint to us and we will consider whether to investigate it further. As part of this process we would consider if any further delays were due to the national shortage of Educational Psychologists or from issues elsewhere in the process. This may then warrant a further remedy.

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Final decision

18. We will not investigate this complaint. This is because the Council has agreed a suitable remedy for the injustice caused by its delay.

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Investigator's decision on behalf of the Ombudsman