Summary: We will not investigate this complaint about the Council’s responses to the complainant’s requests for information about her son’s educational provision. Investigation would not lead to a different outcome and is not therefore warranted.

The complaint

1. The complainant, Miss X, complains that the Council has failed to respond to her requests for information about her son’s educational provision, and has failed to identify aspecialist school place for him.

Back to top

The Ombudsman’s role and powers

2. 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 further investigation would not lead to a different outcome, or we cannot achieve the outcome someone wants. (Local Government Act 1974, section 24A(6), as amended, section 34(B))
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 Tribunal in this decision statement.

Back to top

How I considered this complaint

5. I considered information provided by the complainant.
6. I considered the Ombudsman’s Assessment Code.

Back to top

My assessment

7. Miss X’s son has special educational needs and an Education Health and Care (EHC) plan. The correspondence she has provided shows that his education, including the provision set out in the EHC plan, is currently being delivered in a mainstream school.
8. Miss X complains that the Council has repeatedly failed to respond to her requests for information about her son’s educational placement. She says he requires a placement at a specialist school and the Council has failed to respond to her reasonable requests for updates on the process of securing specialist provision. She further complains that the Council has misinformed the school that it has kept her updated.
9. In response to Miss X’s complaint, the Council has apologised for the previous failure to respond to Miss X’s communications and has set out arrangements for doing so in future. It has also provided an update on the process of identifying specialist provision.
10. Miss X does not regard the Council’s response as reasonable. To remedy her complaint, she wants the provision of information and responses to correspondence to improve, and for the Council to prioritise finding a specialist school place for her son.
11. The Ombudsman will not investigate Miss X’s complaint. This is because investigation would not add anything significant to the response the Council has made, or lead to the outcome Miss X wants. The Council has already apologised for failures in communication and has set out measures to address this in future. That is in line with what the Ombudsman would seek to achieve, and our intervention is not therefore warranted.
12. The Ombudsman would not ask the Council to prioritise the placement of a specific pupil, and investigation would not therefore achieve what Miss X wants. If Miss X is not happy with the placement named in her son’s EHC plan, or if no placement is named and she wants a place at a specific setting, it would be reasonable for her to use her right to appeal to the Tribunal. This is the appropriate recourse and there is no role for the Ombudsman

Back to top

Final decision

13. We will not investigate Miss X’s complaint because our intervention would not lead to a different outcome.

Back to top

Investigator's decision on behalf of the Ombudsman