Summary: We cannot investigate Mrs B’s complaint that the Council was at fault in its management of her son’s transition to secondary education. This is because Mrs B used her right to appeal to the Special Educational Needs and Disability Tribunal, and this places the matter outside our jurisdiction.

The complaint

1. The complainant, who I will refer to as Mrs B, complains that the Council was at fault in its management of her son’s transition to secondary education.

Back to top

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’))

Back to top

How I considered this complaint

4. I have considered what Mrs B has said in support of her complaint and the documents she has provided. I have offered her the opportunity to comment on a draft of this decision.

Back to top

What I found

5. Mrs B’s son has special educational needs and an Education Health and Care Plan (EHCP). He moved to the secondary phase of education in September 2020 and Mrs B argues that the Council mishandled the process.
6. The evidence Mrs B has provided indicates that the Council began the process of reviewing the EHCP in 2019 and that the amended EHCP was issued in final form in February 2020. Mrs B is critical of what she sees as the Council’s failure to take her opinion into account when choosing the school to name in Section I of the EHCP. She argues that the school the Council named is inappropriate for her son.
7. Mrs B appealed unsuccessfully to SEND. She complains about the Council’s actions during what she regards as an unnecessary Tribunal process and claims that, as a result, her son did not have an appropriate placement for September 2020.
8. We cannot investigate Mrs B’s complaint because it concerns a matter which has been subject to appeal. The Council issued the EHCP by February 2020, as it was required to do. Whether the school place the Council named in the EHCP is appropriate is not a question for the Ombudsman. The matter has been tested at appeal, and this places it outside the Ombudsman’s jurisdiction.
9. The events leading to the decision to name the school in the EHCP, and since the Tribunal’s decision, are not separable from the issue considered by the Tribunal. They do not therefore fall to the Ombudsman to investigate.

Back to top

Final decision

10. The Ombudsman cannot investigate this complaint. This is because the matter has been subject to appeal.

Back to top

Investigator's decision on behalf of the Ombudsman