Summary: The Ombudsman will not investigate Mrs X’s complaint about an Educational Psychologist’s report. It was used in a Tribunal and it is reasonable to expect Mrs X to complain to the Health and Care Professions Council.

The complaint

1. The complainant, whom I shall call Mrs X, says an Education Psychologist failed to meet the required standards in compiling a report.

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The Ombudsman’s role and powers

2. We cannot investigate a complaint if someone has appealed to a tribunal. (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’))
4. We cannot investigate late complaints unless we decide there are good reasons. Late complaints are when someone takes more than 12 months to complain to us about something a council has done. (Local Government Act 1974, sections 26B and 34D, as amended)
5. We have the power to start or discontinue an investigation into a complaint within our jurisdiction. We may decide not to start or continue with an investigation if we think the issues could reasonably be, or have been, raised within a court of law. (Local Government Act 1974, sections 24A(6) and 34B(8), as amended)
6. We investigate complaints about ‘maladministration’ and ‘service failure’. In this statement, I have used the word 'fault' to refer to these. We must also consider whether any fault has had an adverse impact on the person making the complaint. I refer to this as ‘injustice’. We provide a free service, but must use public money carefully. We may decide not to start or continue with an investigation if we believe there is another body better placed to consider this complaint (Local Government Act 1974, section 24A(6), as amended)

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How I considered this complaint

7. I considered the information Mrs X provided with her complaint and the previous complaint from her. I considered Mrs X’s comments on a draft version of this decision.

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What I found

8. Mrs X says an Educational Psychologist produced a report on her child in July 2017 which was then used in an Education Health and Care Plan, Tribunal case. She says the report ignored crucial facts and was inaccurate. She says the report’s author failed to follow the Health and Care Professions Council (HCPC)’s standards of conduct when writing the report.

Analysis

9. Mrs X says it has taken her until now to make this specific complaint because she has been embroiled in a Tribunal which did not finish until October 2018.
10. Mrs X’s complaint is about the evidence submitted to a Tribunal. We will not look at this. It is reasonable to expect Mrs X to have told the Tribunal of the reasons why she believed the report flawed. We cannot challenge the content of the report without commenting effectively on the actions and decision of the Tribunal. It is not our role to do this.
11. It is not for us to decide if the HCPC’s codes have not been followed. It is reasonable to expect Mrs X to complain direct to the HCPC. Parliament set up the HCPC to consider professionals registered fitness to practice and professional standards.

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Final decision

12. The Ombudsman will not investigate this complaint. This is because there is another body better placed and we cannot interfere with the Tribunal’s decision.

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Investigator's decision on behalf of the Ombudsman