Summary: Miss X complained that the Council: failed to make alternative provision for her son, Y, when he was unable to attend school due to anxiety caused by the school not meeting his needs; delayed in completing an education, health and care plan needs assessment; and  delayed in dealing with her complaints about the Council’s failure to make alternative provision and delay in completing the needs assessment.

Summary: We found fault by the Council on Mrs J’s complaint about its failure to reach a decision on whether to issue her son with an Education, health, and care plan within statutory timescales. The Council failed to reach its decision and notify Mrs J of it within the timescale. It also failed to deal with her complaint properly. The agreed action remedies the injustice caused.

Summary: The complainant (Mr X) said the Council delayed issuing an Education and Health Care Plan (EHCP) for his son (Y). Mr X also complained about the Council’s communication with the parents and lack of effective liaison after issuing a draft EHCP. We find fault with the way the Council acted when issuing an EHCP for Y. The Council agreed to apologise to Y and Mr X, to make a payment to recognise the loss of special educational provisions caused by the delays and to make service improvements.

Summary: Mrs X complained that the independent appeal panel’s decision to refuse her appeal for a Year 4 place for her son was unfair. She says her circumstances were no different from that of another family who had won their appeal previously, and the Chair of the panel knew her husband but did not declare it. We have not found fault by the Council or the appeal panel in these matters.

Summary: We will not investigate this complaint about the Council’s failure to provide Mr X’s child Y with provision he was entitled to and its delay in issuing an EHC Plan. This is because the Council has accepted fault and offered a proportionate financial award to remedy the injustice caused to Y. Further investigation is not likely to warrant a different outcome.

Summary: We will not investigate Miss X’s complaint about an unsuccessful appeal for a school place. This is because there is not enough evidence of fault and so we cannot question the merits of the panel’s decision.

Summary: There was no fault in the Council’s decision to stop the adoption allowance Mr B received for his son. It looked at the financial information Mr B provided and properly considered the use of its powers. Its reason for stopping the allowance – that another authority was meeting Mr B’s son’s needs instead – was not obviously unreasonable.

Summary: We will not investigate this complaint that the Council failed to adhere to a care order. This is because we could not add to the Council’s investigation and cannot achieve the outcome she seeks. If the complainant believes that the Council has breached the care order it is reasonable to expect her to raise this matter with the courts.

Summary: We cannot investigate this complaint about the actions of two social workers. The matters complained of are not separable from matters that either formed part of court proceedings or could reasonably have done so.

Summary: We will not investigate this complaint about a social worker disclosing information and advising his ex-partner to breach a court order. We cannot investigate the second matter as it is not separable from the conduct of court proceedings. We will not investigate the first matter as, even if it does not concern court proceedings, Mr X has a right it would be reasonable to use to approach the Information Commissioner’s Office, which is better placed to consider the alleged data breach.

Summary: Mrs X complained the Council failed to properly deal with her application for an EHC plan for her daughter. We found the Council’s initial decision not to carry out an EHC assessment was one it was entitled to make. While the EHC took too long to issue, the impact of this was negated by the Council’s agreement to revisit the assessment without the need for the family to appeal. We found there was fault in respect of a school transport issue and in communication about consultations. We also found some issues with the EHC drafting constituted fault. We recommended a remedy for the impact of these issues.

Summary: Mrs D said the Council was at fault for arranging an attendance visit at her home to check his school attendance when the school already knew that he was not attending school because he did not have an education, health and care plan and was not receiving a suitable education. The Council was not at fault. It has duties to encourage school attendance and to ensure the safety of children. The visit was justified on these grounds.

Summary: Mr X complains about the unsuccessful admissions appeal for his child, Child Y. There was no fault in the Appeal Panel’s decision. We cannot question decisions made without fault.

Summary: Mrs D said the Council failed to ensure that her son, X, had an up-to-date education, health and care plan since 2019 and also to ensure that he had a suitable education. The Council was at fault for delays in preparing an education health and care plan and also for failures in communication. These failures caused Mr and Mrs D and X injustice in the form of distress and time taken. The Council has agreed to pay the family a sum in recognition of this fault.

Summary: Ms X complains that the Council failed to make the provision set out in her son’s education, health and care plan. We found find no fault on the Council’s part. Ms X also complains about other matters which we have not investigated as they are inextricably linked with matters considered by the Tribunal so are outside our jurisdiction. Ms X also complained about discrimination by her son’s school. We have not investigated this complaint because the law says we cannot investigate a school’s actions.

Summary: We will not investigate this complaint about the Council’s decision not to reimburse home to school transport costs. This is because there is not enough evidence of fault by the Council.

Summary: The Council was at fault for how it dealt with Miss B’s case when she presented as homeless aged 16. It failed to include children’s social care in its homelessness decision and failed to tell them about domestic abuse concerns. Its subsequent safeguarding action then featured a delayed and, at one point, inadequate consideration of the risk to Miss B. It also failed to properly deal with Miss B’s mother’s complaints. It has agreed to take a series of actions to improve its service and recognise the injustice caused.

Summary: Mrs X complained the Council refused to reassess her as a foster carer when she returned after a break, having previously been a foster carer. The Council was not at fault.

Summary: Mr X complained about the Council’s management of a child protection matter involving his children. We did not investigate parts of the complaint because they are late and there are no good reasons to consider them now. In respect of the complaints we have considered, we found no fault on the Council’s part.

Summary: Ms X and her daughter Ms Y complained the Council's investigation into how it cared for Ms Y as a Looked After Child and communicated with Ms X was not sufficiently comprehensive. The Council was at fault for not considering Ms X and Ms Y’s complaint using the children’s statutory complaints procedure, but this did not cause them an injustice because the Council's investigation was thorough and identified significant failings which it has appropriately remedied. It has agreed to remind staff of the correct process for considering complaints that come under the remit of the children’s statutory complaints procedure.

Summary: Ms X complained about failings in the support the Council provided to her and her grandchildren. The Council’s failure to provide an Independent Social Worker to support Ms X and the delays in applying for funding for therapies for her grandson are fault. These faults have caused Ms X an injustice.

Summary: We will not investigate this complaint about inaccurate information recorded by the Council’s children’s services. This is because the information has been considered in court.

Summary: We will not investigate this complaint about how the Council managed the complainant’s personal information and about how it dealt with his information requests. This is because the Information Commissioner is better placed to deal with complaints about data protection.

Summary: We cannot investigate this complaint about the Council’s actions which led to the complainants’ child being removed from her care in 2020. This is because the matters have been considered in court which places them outside of our jurisdiction.

Summary: We cannot investigate Miss X’s complaint about her two children being placed in her mother’s care following court proceedings in 2012 because it lies outside our jurisdiction. The law prevents us from investigating complaints about matters that have been considered in court.

Summary: We have upheld this complaint that the Council failed to adhere to the timescale set out in the statutory procedure for children’s services. The Council has agreed to resolve the matter by providing a suitable remedy.

Summary: Mr X complains about the Council’s handling of admission to secondary school for his child, Y. The Council is at fault as it cannot demonstrate it properly applied its admissions criteria to Mr X’s application for his child. The Council delayed in providing the questions and answers for the appeal panel hearing and did not provide sufficient in the appeal panel’s decision letter for Mr X to understand why his appeal was refused. But these faults did not cause significant injustice to Mr X. The Council delayed in responding to Mr X’s Freedom of Information request and complaint which caused avoidable time and trouble to him which the Council has agreed to remedy.

Summary: Miss P complains on behalf of her young daughter (Child A) who has special educational needs. The Council maintains and Education and Health Care Plan (EHCP) for Child A which identifies what specialist support she needs. Miss P complains in relation to the EHCP process, a delay in providing Child A’s needed support and the contents of the EHCP. She also says the Council’s contact with her has been poor and that Child A did not receive adequate early intervention support. We found the Council failed to provide Child A’s needed EHCP provision when it should have. Further, when the Council backdated the provision, it was delivered in a way which was inconsistent with Child A’s EHCP. The Council was also responsible for inadequate contact with Miss P. These failings caused an injustice and the Council has agreed to our recommendations to remedy this.

Summary: Mrs X complained the Independent Admissions Appeals Panel failed to properly consider her appeal for a place at the School for her child. There was no fault in the way the Panel considered Mrs X’s appeal and reached its decision.

Summary: Mr X complains the information presented by the Council at his school admission appeal panel related to the wrong address. There was a problem with the information the Council presented at the appeal, but this did not call the Panel’s decision into question. We have found no fault by the Council.

Summary: Miss P complains on behalf of her young daughter (Child B) who has special educational needs. The Council maintains and Education and Health Care Plan (EHCP) for Child B which identifies what specialist support she needs. Miss P complains in relation to the EHCP process, a delay in providing Child B’s needed support and the contents of the EHCP. She also says the Council’s contact with her has been poor and that Child B did not receive adequate early intervention support. We found the Council failed to provide Child B’s needed EHCP provision when it should have. Further, when the Council backdated the provision, it was delivered in a way which was inconsistent with Child B’s EHCP. The Council was also responsible for inadequate contact with Miss P. These failings caused an injustice and the Council has agreed to our recommendations to remedy this.

Summary: We will not investigate this complaint about an unsuccessful appeal for a school place. This is because there is not enough evidence of fault.

Summary: We will not investigate this complaint about child protection action in respect of the complainant’s children. This is because we would not achieve anything significant by doing so.

Summary: We will not investigate this complaint about that the Council committed a data breach by accessing her private information without her consent and sharing it with others. This is because complaints about breaches of data protection regulations are better considered by the Information Commissioner.

Bristol City Council (21 014 834)

Summary: Mrs B complained on behalf of her son, Mr D that the Council failed to provide some of the provision specified in his Education, Health, and Social Care Plan. She also says it missed statutory timescales and caused avoidable delay in reviewing her complaint. We find the Council was at fault for failing to provide some of Mr D’s provision, failing to meet the statutory time limits and failed to properly deal with her complaints. This caused Mr D and Mrs B an injustice of loss of provision, anxiety, frustration, and put Mrs B to the time and trouble of complaining. The Council has agreed to remedy the injustice caused.

Summary: Mrs X complained about the Council’s failure to provide her daughter with a suitable education and support for her special educational needs since 2018. We found the Council to be at fault because it failed to provide speech and language therapy specified in the Education, Health and Care Plan since June 2020. To remedy the injustice caused by this fault, the Council has agreed to apologise, make a payment to Mrs X and her daughter X, take action to provide the service in future and increase the supply of therapists in its area. We have not investigated part of Mrs X’s complaint because she appealed to the Tribunal.

Summary: There was no fault in either the way the school admissions panel appeal meeting was held or how it made its decision to refuse Mrs X’s child a school place.

Summary: Ms X complains the Council failed to ensure her son was receiving the provision named in his Education, Health, and Care Plan causing distress. We found no evidence of fault in the way the Council responded to Ms X’s concerns about the provision being made. We found fault as the Council delayed in responding to Ms X’s complaints about the matter. The Council accepted it was at fault. It has already apologised to Ms X and offered payment in recognition of the delay and her time and trouble in pursing her complaints. We consider it a suitable remedy in this case and so have completed our investigation.

Summary: We will not investigate Mrs X’s complaint the Council has named a special school for her son’s education which is no longer meeting his special educational needs. Mrs X has the right to appeal the latest education health care plan to the Special Educational Needs and Disability (SEND) Tribunal.

Summary: The Ombudsman will not investigate Miss X’s complaint about the Council’s decision not to provide her daughter with free transport to school. There is not enough evidence of fault by the Council for us to question the merits of its decisions.

Summary: We will not investigate Mr X’s complaint about the Council’s decisions regarding home to school transport for his children. This is because there is not enough evidence of fault by the Council.

Summary: We will not investigate this complaint that the Council’s school admission appeal panel failed to properly consider the complainant’s grounds of appeal against the decision to refuse his application for a school place. This is because there is no evidence of fault on the Council’s part.

Summary: Mr and Mrs B complained the Council failed to ensure an adequate investigation into a complaint they made in December 2017. We upheld the complaint finding the Council at fault for a series of delays which prevented the complaint progressing through the statutory complaint procedure for complaints about children’s services. The Council accepted our findings and agreed action, set out at the end of this statement, to remedy the resulting injustice caused to Mr and Mrs B.

Summary: Mrs X complained the Council failed to act on the agreed actions in a Children in Need plan put in place for her daughter, C. The Council has delayed carrying out the agreed actions in the plan and offered in response to the complaint. The Council should make payment to remedy the impact on Mrs X and C and make changes to its policies and procedures.

Summary: Miss Y complains about the Council’s failure to safeguard her children when they were placed into short-term foster care under an Interim Care Order. We find some fault by the Council causing injustice to Miss Y and her daughter, D. The Council will pay £500 to Miss Y and undertake the service improvements listed at the end of this statement.

Summary: Ms Y complains the Council failed to provide advice about her potential eligibility to receive benefit payments whilst providing long-term foster care for two children. The Council upheld some elements of the complaint, implemented some service improvements, apologised and offered to pay £900 for the distress caused. This is an appropriate remedy and we do not recommend anything further.

Summary: We uphold Mr X’s complaint that the Council failed to consider his complaint within its children statutory complaints’ procedure. The Council has agreed to do so without further delay.