Summary: We will not investigate this complaint about the refusal of the Council to conduct a mental health assessment of Mr X’s and to incorporate the result into the child’s Education Health and Care Plan. Doing so would be unlikely to lead to us recommending any more than the Council, as it agreed after discussion with Mr X to carry out an assessment by a psychologist. If the assessment eventually feeds into a part of the final Education Health and Care Plan that can be appealed to the Special Educational Needs and Disability Tribunal, it would also be reasonable for Mr X to use that right of appeal to seek changes in provision.

The complaint

1. Mr X said the Council refused to carry out a mental health assessment of his child. He said his child has possible difficulties with an eating disorder and anxiety that are preventing school attendance. He wanted the Council to feed in the result of the assessment to the Education Heath and Care (EHC) Plan being prepared.

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The Ombudsman’s role and powers

2. 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, or
• we could not add to any previous investigation by the organisation, or
• further investigation would not lead to a different outcome, or
• we cannot achieve the outcome someone wants, or
• there is no worthwhile outcome achievable by our investigation.

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

3. The Local Government Act 1974 sets out our powers but also imposes restrictions on what we can investigate.
4. 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)
5. 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.

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How I considered this complaint

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

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My assessment

8. The correspondence Mr X sent us stated the Council agreed at a meeting in January 2025 to ask the psychologist Mr X had preferred to assess the child. It also stated this person had declined to act, and that the Council had then asked another psychologist to do the work. It is not clear which section of the intended EHC Plan would be affected by the assessment.
9. If the assessment does not relate to a section of the EHC Plan that has a right of appeal to the SEND Tribunal, then we would not expect Mr X to appeal. However, investigation by us would be unlikely to recommend more than the Council has already offered. And any original refusal would not be likely to have created sufficient injustice on its own to warrant our further involvement.
10. If the assessment relates to a section of the EHC Plan that carries a right of appeal to the SEND Tribunal, it would be reasonable for Mr X to use the available right of appeal to seek any amendments he desires.

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Final decision

11. We will not investigate Mr X’s complaint because:

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Investigator's decision on behalf of the Ombudsman