Summary: We will not investigate Mr X’s complaints about the Council’s decision to cease his daughter’s college placement and Education, Health and Care Plan and its communications and complaints handling. The substantive matters are appealable, or could have been appealed, to the SEND Tribunal. The other complaints do not warrant investigation because there is either not enough evidence of fault or injustice or there is no worthwhile outcome achievable.

The complaint

1. Mr X complained the Council failed to properly consider his complaints about the Council’s decision to end his daughter, Miss Y’s college placement and Education, Health and Care (EHC) Plan.

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The Ombudsman’s role and powers

2. The law says we cannot normally investigate a complaint when someone has a right of appeal, reference or review to a tribunal about the same matter. However, we may decide to investigate if we consider it would be unreasonable to expect the person to use this right. (Local Government Act 1974, section 26(6)(a), as amended)
3. The First-tier Tribunal (Special Educational Needs and Disability) considers appeals against council decisions regarding special educational needs. We refer to it as the Tribunal in this decision statement.
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:

• there is not enough evidence of fault to justify investigating, or
• any injustice is not significant enough to justify our involvement, or
• 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

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

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My assessment

7. Mr X is unhappy with how the Council investigated his complaints. These related in the main to matters which are appealable to the SEND Tribunal as they are about ceasing Miss Y’s EHC Plan and her placement at college. It was reasonable to expect Mr X to appeal and so these are not matters we would investigate.
8. In relation to the other issues Mr X complained about, one complaint related to minor delays in the Council issuing its decision letter not to continue Miss Y’s college placement. There is not enough evidence of fault or injustice to warrant an investigation.
9. Mr X’s last complaint was around the lack of explanation in the decision letter about why the Panel decided to end Miss Y’s placement. The Council said that the officer involved in the case had offered to discuss the decision but was unexpectedly off work for a short period. By the time they returned Mr X had made a complaint and the Council’s stage 1 response detailed the explanation instead. There is no worthwhile outcome achievable by investigating this matter.
10. We will not investigate how the Council handled Mr X’s complaints. That is because it is not a good use of public resources to look at the Council’s complaints handling if we are not going to look at the substantive issues complained about.

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Final decision

11. We will not investigate Mr X’s complaints. The main ones are either appealable, or could have been appealed, to the SEND Tribunal. The others complaints do not warrant investigation because there is either not enough evidence of fault or injustice or there is no worthwhile outcome achievable.

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Investigator's decision on behalf of the Ombudsman