Summary: We will not investigate this complaint about the school named in an Education, Health and Care plan. This is because Mrs X has already appealed to the tribunal about this and we cannot investigate a complaint when someone has appealed to the tribunal about the same matter. We will not investigate the Council’s poor communication as the injustice caused is insufficient to justify investigating.

The complaint

1. Mrs X complained the Council named an unsuitable school in her son’s Education, Health and Care (EHC) plan and provided poor communication.
2. She says the school named could not meet her son’s needs and this led to him experiencing an incident of harm.

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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 Tribunal in this decision statement.
6. 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

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

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My assessment

9. The Council issued Mrs X’s son, C, with an EHC plan in 2024 and named a mainstream school. Mrs X did not consider this suitable as the Council had already accepted he needed a specialist placement. While attending the school there was an incident with a member of staff which caused harm to C. Mrs X believes this would not have happened had the Council named the correct school.
10. Mrs X appealed to the tribunal about the school named in section I in 2024. We cannot investigate complaints if someone has appealed to the tribunal about the same matter. This means we cannot consider her complaint about the school C attended even though the tribunal would not have considered whether this decision led to the incident or not.
11. We will not investigate Mrs X’s complaint about poor communication from the Council. The Council has acknowledged fault but there is insufficient injustice to warrant investigation.

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Final decision

12. We will not investigate Mrs X’s complaint because she appealed to the SEND tribunal and we cannot investigate a complaint when someone has appealed to the tribunal about the same matter.

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Investigator's decision on behalf of the Ombudsman