Summary: We will not investigate this complaint about the permanent exclusion of the complainant’s daughter from school. This is because there is insufficient evidence of fault on the Council’s part to warrant investigation.

The complaint

1. The complainant, Mrs X, complains that the Council’s independent review panel was at fault in upholding her daughter’s permanent exclusion from school.

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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 effect 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 an investigation if we decide the tests set out in our Assessment Code are not met. (Local Government Act 1974, section 24A(6), as amended)

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How I considered this complaint

3. I considered information provided by the complainant and the Council.
4. I considered the Ombudsman’s Assessment Code.

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My assessment

5. Mrs X’s daughter was permanently excluded from her school. Mrs X appealed to the school’s governors against the exclusion. The governors upheld the Headteacher’s decision to exclude. Mrs X used her right to ask for the governors’ decision to be reviewed by an independent review panel. As the school is a community school, the Council was responsible for convening the independent review panel.
6. The Ombudsman investigates complaints about independent review panels, not about schools. We do not decide whether a pupil should have been excluded or should be reinstated. Our role is to consider whether the panel administered the appeal properly. We cannot question panel decisions taken without fault, no matter how strongly the parent disagrees.
7. It is not the role of the independent review panel to substitute their decision for that of the governors, and they cannot reinstate a pupil. The panel can uphold the decision to exclude, recommend the governing body reconsiders its decision, or quash the governing body's decision and direct reconsideration. The question for the Ombudsman is whether there is evidence of fault in the way a panel considered the matter and made its decision.
8. In this case, the independent review panel upheld the Governors’ decision to exclude. Mrs X disagrees with the decision and argues that her daughter has been let down by the school and the Council. But that does not mean the decision to uphold the exclusion amounts to fault.
9. The Ombudsman cannot consider the school’s actions and so cannot take a view on the exclusion itself. Regarding the independent review panel, the decision letter Mrs X has provided shows that it considered the evidence before it and gave proper scrutiny to the issues. There is no evidence of fault in the way it did so. That being the case, the Ombudsman cannot criticise the panel’s decision, or intervene to substitute an alternative view.

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Final decision

10. We will not investigate Mrs X’s complaint because there is insufficient evidence of fault on the Council’s part.

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Investigator's decision on behalf of the Ombudsman