Kent County Council (22 010 980)
Category : Education > Special educational needs
Decision : Closed after initial enquiries
Decision date : 07 Dec 2022
The Ombudsman's final decision:
Summary: We will not investigate Mrs X’s complaint about the Council’s compliance with a Tribunal order. Mrs X has appealed to the Tribunal and we cannot investigate the same issues.
The complaint
- The complainant, whom I shall call Mrs X, says the Council failed to carry out a Tribunal’s order.
The Ombudsman’s role and powers
- We cannot investigate a complaint if someone has appealed to a tribunal about the same matter. (Local Government Act 1974, section 26(6)(a), as amended)
- The First-tier Tribunal (Special Educational Needs and Disability) considers appeals against council decisions regarding special educational needs. We refer to it as the SEND Tribunal in this decision statement.
How I considered this complaint
- I considered information provided by Mrs X and the Council.
- I considered the Ombudsman’s Assessment Code.
My assessment
- Mrs X says in mid January 2022 the Tribunal ordered the Council to “ conduct a full assessment in respect of Y’s needs and issue an Education Health and Care Plan (EHC Plan) which adequately identifies those needs and the provision required to meet them”. The Council issued an EHC Plan for Y within the 14 weeks needed by the regulations.
- Mrs X says the EHC Plan does not adequately identify Y’s needs, nor Y’s quantified and specified provision to meet those needs. Mrs X has appealed to SEND the EHC Plan wording. The Council says the EHC Plan does identify Y’s needs and the provision needed to meet them.
- Mrs X says the Council has not properly complied with the Tribunal’s decision. She says if it had the EHC Plan would meet Y’s needs and she would not need to appeal.
Analysis
- An EHC Plan has to identify a child’s needs and set out the provision that is required to meet those needs. If a parent believes it does not, they have a right of appeal to SEND. Here the parent has used that right. We cannot investigate the same issues the Tribunal is deciding.
- Mrs X believes the adequacy of the Council’s assessment is separable from the appeal. The effect of the assessment is the adequacy of the EHC Plan. One leads to the other and therefore are not separable.
Final decision
- We will not investigate Mrs X’s complaint because we cannot investigate the same issues a Tribunal is covering.
Investigator's decision on behalf of the Ombudsman