Summary: Miss X complains about the Council’s decision to cease to maintain her son, Y’s, EHCP and a failure to inform of a change in Y's caseworker. We cannot investigate Mr X’s complaint about the Council’s decision to cease to maintain Y’s EHCP. Y had a right of appeal to the SEND Tribunal to appeal the Council’s decision to cease to maintain their EHCP, and this means the matter is out of our jurisdiction. Further, the Council has apologised to Miss X and reminded local settings of its expectations in order to ensure information is correctly shared in future.

The complaint

1. Miss X complains about the Council’s decision to cease to maintain her son, Y’s, EHCP. Miss X also notes that she was not informed of a change in Y's caseworker, which she had requested. Miss Y feels this lack of communication has caused her unnecessary distress and has disadvantaged Y. She seeks a review of the policy and better notification procedures for caseworker changes.

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The Ombudsman’s role and powers

2. The Local Government Act 1974 sets out our powers but also imposes restrictions on what we can investigate.
3. The law says we cannot normally investigate a complaint when someone has a right of appeal, reference or review to a tribunal about the same matter. However, we may decide to investigate if we consider it would be unreasonable to expect the person to use this right. (Local Government Act 1974, section 26(6)(a), as amended)
4. 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.

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How I considered this complaint

5. I considered the information provided by Miss X, and information provided by the Council. Miss X and the Council were offered an opportunity to comment on my draft decision.

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What I found

6. In October 2023, the Council issued a letter to Y to cease to maintain their EHCP.
7. The letter was not sent to Miss X, Y’s parent, but rather directly to Y. The Council says that it did not have consent on file to inform Miss X, as Y was over 16 years old at the time, and it was therefore complying with GDPR regulations.
8. Miss X also expressed concern with the Council’s failure to inform about a change in Y’s caseworker. The Council acknowledged that it had not done so and said it would remind the setting to inform parent/carers of a change in the caseworker should this occur.

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My findings

Decision to cease to maintain the EHCP

9. If a local authority decides to cease maintaining an EHCP, this decision can be appealed. The local authority is required to notify the parent or the young person (if they are 16 or over) in writing of its decision to cease the EHCP.
10. The young person can appeal to the Special Educational Needs and Disability (SEND) Tribunal if they disagree with the local authority’s decision. The appeal can be based on arguments that the local authority’s decision is incorrect or that the decision should be reconsidered.
11. The Council says it did not have consent from Y on record to share such correspondence with Miss X and by sending the notification to Y had been acting in accordance with GDPR regulations.
12. As per paragraph 3, the law says we cannot normally investigate a complaint when someone has a right of appeal, reference or review to a tribunal about the same matter. However, we may decide to investigate if we consider it would be unreasonable to expect the person to use this right. This means that the matter is out of our jurisdiction and not something we can investigate.

Notification of caseworker changes

13. The local authority acknowledges that, while senior SEN caseworkers do inform educational settings (e.g., colleges) of caseworker changes, they failed to ensure that parents were notified in this instance. The local authority has apologized for not informing the parent about the caseworker change and will remind settings to inform parents in the future. I consider this a sufficient response.

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Final decision

14. We cannot investigate Mr X’s complaint about the Council’s decision to cease to maintain Y’s EHCP. Y had a right of appeal to the SEND Tribunal to appeal the Council’s decision to cease to maintain their EHCP, and this means the matter is out of our jurisdiction. Further, the Council has apologised to Miss X and reminded local settings of its expectations in order to ensure information is correctly shared in future.

Investigator’s final decision on behalf of the Ombudsman

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Investigator's decision on behalf of the Ombudsman