Sunderland City Council (19 002 865)

Category : Education > Special educational needs

Decision : Closed after initial enquiries

Decision date : 04 Jul 2019

The Ombudsman's final decision:

Summary: We cannot investigate this complaint about a child’s Education, Health and Care Plan. This is because Mrs Q has appealed to a Tribunal.

The complaint

  1. The complainant, who I have called Mrs Q, complained about Sunderland City Council’s handling of her son’s Education, Health and Care Plan (EHC Plan). She said it failed to include relevant information in his EHC Plan.

Back to top

The Ombudsman’s role and powers

  1. The Local Government Act 1974 sets out our powers but also imposes restrictions on what we can investigate.
  2. The law says we cannot normally investigate a complaint when someone can appeal to a tribunal. However, we may decide to investigate if we consider it would be unreasonable to expect the person to appeal. (Local Government Act 1974, section 26(6)(a), as amended)
  3. SEND is a tribunal that considers special educational needs. (The Special Educational Needs and Disability Tribunal (‘SEND’))

Back to top

How I considered this complaint

  1. I considered the information Mrs Q provided. I discussed the complaint with her.

Back to top

What I found

  1. Mrs Q’s son, C, has special educational needs. He has an EHC Plan. The Council did an annual review and decided to reassess C. It issued an amended EHC Plan in May. Mrs Q has appealed to SEND as she is not happy with it. She said the Council failed to include relevant and up-to-date evidence regarding C’s conditions. This includes an up-to-date report from an Educational Psychologist.
  2. I recognise Mrs Q is very unhappy with the Council’s reassessment of C and his amended EHC Plan. But she has appealed to SEND. So we cannot investigate her complaint for this reason.

Back to top

Final decision

  1. We cannot investigate this complaint. This is because Mrs Q has appealed to a tribunal.

Back to top

Investigator's decision on behalf of the Ombudsman

Print this page

LGO logogram

Review your privacy settings

Required cookies

These cookies enable the website to function properly. You can only disable these by changing your browser preferences, but this will affect how the website performs.

View required cookies

Analytical cookies

Google Analytics cookies help us improve the performance of the website by understanding how visitors use the site.
We recommend you set these 'ON'.

View analytical cookies

In using Google Analytics, we do not collect or store personal information that could identify you (for example your name or address). We do not allow Google to use or share our analytics data. Google has developed a tool to help you opt out of Google Analytics cookies.

Privacy settings