Summary: We will not investigate this complaint about the Council taking Mrs X’s child off the school roll, then failing to provide alternative provision. This is because some of the complaint is late without good reason, and Mrs X used her right of appeal to the SEND Tribunal for the other parts.

The complaint

1. Mrs X complains the Council took her daughter off the school roll without informing her, and then failed to provide special educational provision and alternative education.
2. Mrs X would like the Council to investigate her complaint, provide suitable educational provision, apologise and compensate her daughter.

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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. We cannot investigate late complaints unless we decide there are good reasons. Late complaints are when someone takes more than 12 months to complain to us about something a council has done. (Local Government Act 1974, sections 26B and 34D, as amended)
5. 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)
6. 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

7. I considered information provided by Mrs X and the Council, as well as relevant law, policy and guidance.
8. I considered the Ombudsman’s Assessment Code.

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My assessment

9. Mrs X complains about the Council’s actions from early to mid-2023 but she did not complain to us about them until June 2025. A complaint about her daughter being taken off the school roll is therefore late. I have seen no good reason for the delay in bringing the complaint.
10. The other complaints are about the Education and Health Care Needs Assessment process and the contents of her child’s Education, Health and Care Plan (EHC Plan). The Council did not name the school Mrs X wanted in the EHC Plan.
11. This can be appealed at the SEND Tribunal and it would have been reasonable for Mrs X to use this right of appeal. The documents provided suggest she did. We cannot investigate these points further (see paragraph five). Nor can we investigate the impact of the Council’s decision or provide a remedy for any missed provision which occurred as a result of Mrs X’s disagreement with the EHC Plan.
12. The Council was under a duty to make the provision listed in the EHC Plan available to Mrs X’s child and did not have to provide an alternative because Mrs X did not agree with the named school in the EHC Plan.

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Final decision

13. We will not investigate Mrs X’s complaint because the complaint is late without good reason and she used her appeal right to the SEND Tribunal.

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Investigator's decision on behalf of the Ombudsman