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. Miss X complains the Council failed to complete the Education, Health and Care (EHC) needs assessment process for her daughter, Y, in accordance with the statutory deadlines. Miss X requested an assessment on 10 October 2024 but the Council took until May 2026 to complete the process and 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. There are timescales for each stage of the EHC needs assessment process. Councils must consider requests for assessments and decide if they will carry out an assessment within six weeks. They then have a further 10 weeks to decide if they will issue an EHC Plan and if they decide to issue a Plan, they have a further four weeks to finalise it. The whole process must not exceed 20 weeks. 
8. In this case the Council considered Miss X’s request for an assessment but decided it was not necessary. Miss X appealed against this decision and the Council agreed to carry out an assessment on 2 May 2025. We cannot consider any delay caused by Miss X’s appeal and I have therefore focused my attention on the time taken by the Council to complete the process after 2 May 2025.
9. Once the Council decided to carry out an assessment it should have completed the process and told Miss X if it intended to issue Y an EHC Plan by 11 July 2025. If it decided to issue a Plan, it should have finalised this by 8 August 2025. But the Council did not issue the final EHC Plan until 13 May 2026.
10. The Council has accepted delay in completing Y’s assessment and deciding whether to issue her an EHC Plan. It has explained that a lack of Educational Psychologists has contributed to the delay. The failure to issue a decision amounts to service failure.
11. We are satisfied the Council is taking action to deal with the issues caused by a lack of Educational Psychologists. In response to our findings in a previous case it sent us an action plan of its service improvements.
12. We do however accept the Council’s 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

13. The Council has agreed to the following actions to remedy Miss X’s complaint:
14. Apologise to Miss X for the delay in the EHC Plan process;
15. Pay Miss X £100 for each month of delay, a total of £900.
16. The Council should complete the agreed remedy within four weeks of the date of this decision.
17. 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.

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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