Summary: We will not investigate Miss X’s complaint about Y missing one Speech and Language Therapist’s session as there is insufficient injustice to warrant an investigation. We cannot investigate whether the current Education Health and Care Plan meets Y’s needs as Miss X has appealed to the Tribunal.

The complaint

1. Miss X says the Council failed to provide Speech and Language Therapy (SALT) to Y, as set out in their Education Health and Care Plan (EHC Plan). She says the EHC Plan is not specific enough.

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The Ombudsman’s role and powers

2. 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)
3. 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.
4. We cannot investigate a complaint if someone has appealed to a tribunal about the same matter. We also cannot investigate a complaint if in doing so we would overlap with the role of a tribunal to decide something which has been or could have been referred to it to resolve using its own powers. (Local Government Act 1974, section 26(6)(a), as amended)
5. We investigate complaints about ‘maladministration’ and ‘service failure’, which we call ‘fault’. We must also consider whether any fault has had an adverse impact on the person making the complaint, which we call ‘injustice’. We provide a free service, but must use public money carefully. We do not start or continue an investigation if we decide any injustice is not significant enough to justify our involvement. (Local Government Act 1974, section 24A(6), as amended, section 34(B))

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How I considered this complaint

6. I considered information provided by Miss X which included the Council’s reply to her complaint.
7. I considered the Ombudsman’s Assessment Code.

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My assessment

8. The Council issued a final EHC Plan for Y in November 2023. Miss X says this has not met the specificity requirements. We will not look at whether the November 2023 EHC Plan was written correctly. It is reasonable to expect Miss X to have appealed to the Tribunal.
9. Miss X says that Y’s SALT therapist went on extended leave. She says this meant Y did not receive the SALT they needed consistently. The Council says Y’s EHC Plan requires six direct SALT contacts each academic year. It says Y had five contacts. Missing one SALT is not sufficient enough injustice to warrant our investigation.
10. The Council held an EHC Plan annual review in November 2024. Miss X says the SALT did not attend. She says the Council’s poor processes led to a poor annual review. She disagrees with the annual review’s outcome. She has appealed to the Tribunal. We cannot look at the annual review as the consequence of that annual review is the amended EHC Plan or the decision not to amend the EHC Plan and Miss X has appealed this.

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Final decision

11. We will not investigate Miss X’s complaint because there is not enough injustice caused by the loss of one SALT session to justify an investigation. We cannot look at issues which a Tribunal is considering. And we will not investigate the wording of the original EHC Plan as it is reasonable to expect Miss X to have appealed to the Tribunal.

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Investigator's decision on behalf of the Ombudsman