Summary: We will not investigate Mrs X’s complaint about her child’s school, the contents of their Education, Health and Care Plan and the Council’s decision not to reassess their needs sooner. This is because it is reasonable to expect Mrs X to have used her right of appeal to a tribunal.

The complaint

1. Mrs X complains about how the Council has managed the education of her child, Y. Mrs X says it was clear the specialist school named on Y’s EHC Plan issued in 2022 was unsuitable and the Council should have carried out a reassessment of his needs then. Mrs X also complains about negligence and bullying at the school.
2. Mrs X is unhappy with the setting and contents of the new EHC Plan and says that Y is now out of school. She says this has impacted her family’s health, well-being and finances and has led to parental burnout. Mrs X wants compensation to remedy the loss of education and the trauma of the past few years.

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The Ombudsman’s role and powers

3. The Local Government Act 1974 sets out our powers but also imposes restrictions on what we can investigate.
4. 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).
5. 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.
6. We cannot investigate most complaints about what happens in schools. (Local Government Act 1974, Schedule 5, paragraph 5(2), as amended)

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How I considered this complaint

7. I considered information provided by the complainant and the Council.
8. I considered the Ombudsman’s Assessment Code.

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My assessment

9. Mrs Y says the school named in Y’s EHC Plan in 2022 was unsuitable and the Council should have carried out a reassessment of Y’s needs. We will not investigate this complaint because it would have been reasonable for Mrs X to appeal to the SEND Tribunal at the time if she felt the setting was inappropriate for Y.
10. We cannot investigate Mrs X’s complaint about negligence and bullying that Y faced at school. This is because the Ombudsman does not have powers to look at complaints about schools.
11. The Council issued a new EHC Plan in 2024. Mrs X is unhappy with the content and the setting named in the EHC Plan. We will not investigate any matters related to the setting or the content of the Plan because it is reasonable for Mrs X to appeal to the SEND Tribunal. The education provision currently in place for Y is not separable from the school named on the EHC plan and so is not separable from Mrs X’s right of appeal. Therefore, we cannot look at this either.

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Final decision

12. We will not investigate this complaint because it is reasonable to expect Mrs X to use her appeal rights which places the case outside our jurisdiction.

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Investigator's decision on behalf of the Ombudsman