Summary: We will not investigate Mrs X’s complaint that the Council failed to arrange suitable education for her son. This is because part of the complaint is late, the Council has already offered a suitable remedy and Mrs X had a right of appeal to the SEND Tribunal which it would have been reasonable for her to use.

The complaint

1. Mrs X complains the Council failed to arrange a suitable education for her son (Y), who has an Education Health and Care (EHC) Plan, between January 2021 and January 2024. Mrs X says this caused her family distress.

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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. (Local Government Act 1974, section 24A(6), as amended, section 34(B))
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. 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)
6. The First-tier Tribunal (Special Educational Needs and Disability – SEND) considers appeals against council decisions regarding special educational needs. We refer to it as the 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.
8. I considered the Ombudsman’s Assessment Code.

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My assessment

9. Mrs X says she withdrew Y from school in January 2021 because the school could not meet his needs. She home-educated him until March 2022, when the Council reviewed his EHC plan and agreed an ‘Education Other Than at School’ (EOTAS) package whilst it looked for a new placement. The Council named a new school from January 2024.
10. In June 2025, Mrs X complained to the Council. The Council accepted there was delay in finding a school placement, apologised and offered a financial remedy. However, it said Y’s withdrawal from school in 2021 was voluntary and it would not therefore compensate her for inadequate educational provision for the period from January 2021 until March 2022.
11. Mrs X complained to the Council in June 2025, four years after her decision to withdraw X from school. She then complained to us in July 2025. Mrs X wants us to consider her complaint about the Council’s actions over the full period from January 2021. She says she did not make a voluntary decision to home educate her son during this time but had no choice because the school placement was unsuitable.
12. The issues Mrs X complains about stopped by January 2024 when the Council named a new school in Y’s EHC Plan but Mrs X did not complain to the Council or to us until more than 12 months later. Her complaint is therefore late. I have considered whether we should exercise discretion to consider the matter, but I have seen no good reasons to do so. Mrs X says she was caring for her other son over the same period and this limited the amount of time she could dedicate to raising complaints but I do not accept this prevented her from complaining at all for more than four years. Further, although Mrs X says she has come to us now because the Council continues to say it was her choice to remove Y from school this is not a good reason to exercise our discretion to investigate. The Council issued an EHC Plan naming ‘elective school education’ and if Mrs X had wanted to challenge this it would have been reasonable for her to appeal to the SEND Tribunal at the time.
13. In any event, the Council has offered Mrs X a significant financial remedy totalling £4,750 for the delay in finding Y a school placement and this is broadly in line with our Guidance on Remedies.

Final decision

14. We will not investigate Mrs X’s complaint. This is because the complaint is late, the Council has offered a suitable remedy and Mrs X had the right of appeal to the SEND Tribunal.

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Investigator's decision on behalf of the Ombudsman