Summary: We cannot investigate Mrs X’s complaint about the Council’s provision of education since July 2024 for Y. It is not separable from the matters a Tribunal considered. There are no reasons to justify investigating matters known to Mrs X for more than 12 months.

The complaint

1. Mrs X complains about the way the Council handled her child, Y’s, education over six years.

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The Ombudsman’s role and powers

2. 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)
3. 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.
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. In R (on application of Milburn) v Local Govt and Social Care Ombudsman & Anr [2023] EWCA Civ 207 the Court said s26(6)(a) of the Local Government Act prevents us from investigating a matter which forms the “main subject or substance” of an appeal to the Tribunal and also “those ancillary matters that may fall to be decided by the Tribunal… such as procedural failings or conduct which is said to be in breach of the [Tribunal] Rules, practice directions or directions or that is said to be unreasonable…”.

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How I considered this complaint

6. I considered information provided by Mrs X and the Council’s replies to her.
7. I considered the Ombudsman’s Assessment Code.

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My assessment

8. Y has an Education Health and Care Plan (EHC Plan). The school held an annual review in September 2023. The Council issued an amended final EHC Plan following the annual review in April 2024. Mrs X disagreed with the sections setting out Y’s needs, the provision to meet those needs and the setting (from September 2024). She appealed to the Tribunal.
9. The Tribunal decided the case in October 2025, which included changing the educational setting.
10. Mrs X says that between September 2024 and April 2025 the Council failed to provide the education Y needed. She says the Council provided inadequate tutoring.
11. Mrs X says the Council had failed to provide suitable education for six years. She says the Council provided an inconsistent SEND officer. She says communication was poor and the Council missed deadlines. She says she had to constantly chase the Council.

Analysis

12. We cannot investigate a complaint about events known to Mrs X for more than 12 months without good reasons. Mrs X complained to us at the end of July 2025. There are no reasons to justify investigating events before July 2024. The Council delayed in replying to her complaint but this covers less than six months. It is reasonable to expect Mrs X to have complained to us earlier.
13. We cannot investigate issues, events and matters involved in the Tribunal appeal. This means we cannot investigate what Y’s needs were, what provision the Council should have provided and where. This covers the time from the EHC Plan issued in April 2024 until the Tribunal’s decision in October 2025. We cannot investigate if the education provided in the meantime was suitable as this is not separable from the matters appealed.
14. We cannot look at the way the Council conducted itself including communication issues during the appeal.

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Final decision

15. We will not investigate Mrs X’s complaint because there are no reasons to justify investigating issues known to Mrs X for more than 12 months. And we cannot investigate matters involved in a Tribunal appeal.

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Investigator's decision on behalf of the Ombudsman