Summary: We will not investigate this complaint about the Council’s decision to maintain an Education, Health and Care Plan for her child and how the school taught Mrs X’s child when delivering the special educational needs provision. We do not have the power to investigate the complaint.

The complaint

1. Mrs X complained that:

• The Council wrongly decided to maintain her child’s Education, Health and Care Plan.
• Her child’s school misused the Education, Health and Care Plan to isolate her child and failed to respond to her concerns about a member of staff.
• The Council failed to consider her complaints about the school misusing the Education, Health and Care Plan and her concerns about a member of the school’s staff.

2. Mrs X says that, as a result, she and her child have suffered significant distress.

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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 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. 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 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 Mrs X and the Council.
8. I considered the Ombudsman’s Assessment Code.

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My assessment

9. Mrs X’s child has an Education, Health and Care (EHC) Plan. The Council carried out an annual review of the EHC Plan and decided to maintain it. Mrs X disagreed with the Council’s decision as she considered her child did not need an EHC Plan.
10. We cannot investigate Mrs X’s complaint about the Council’s decision to maintain the EHC Plan. Mrs X has appealed against this decision to the Tribunal. She has also appealed against the content of the EHC Plan. We therefore do not have the power to consider this complaint.
11. We cannot investigate complaints about the internal management of schools. So, we do not have the power to investigate how a school teaches its pupils, including how it delivers special educational needs provision, on a day-to-day basis. We therefore cannot investigate Mrs X’s complaint that the school misused her child’s EHC Plan. This is because it is about how the school taught her child when delivering the special educational needs provision. We also cannot investigate complaints about the conduct of school staff as that concerns the internal management of the school.
12. We cannot investigate Mrs X’s complaint about how the Council considered her complaints about the teaching of her child and conduct of staff. We do not have the power to investigate how the Council considered a complaint when we cannot investigate the issues raised by the complaint.

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Investigator's decision on behalf of the Ombudsman