Summary: We will not investigate Ms X‘s complaint that the Council did not apply mediation rules correctly in a special educational needs matter, and that it did not adequately fund the provision intended for her child for September 2025. She has appealed to the Special Educational Needs and Disability Tribunal about the disputed content of her child’s Education Health and Care Plan. Investigation of how the Council approached mediation would not be likely to lead to any worthwhile outcome. The second matter was speculative at the time she approached us. Ms X would need first to complain to the Council about any failure to make the provision in Section F of her child’s Education Health and Care Plan.

The complaint

1. Ms X said the Council wrongly stated it could not engage in further mediation with her regarding the Education Health and Care Plan it issued for her child.
2. She also complained the Council had not provided adequate funding for the provision specified and a school had been unable to recruit a member of staff.

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The Ombudsman’s role and powers

3. 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 there is no worthwhile outcome achievable by our investigation.

(Local Government Act 1974, section 24A(6), as amended, section 34(B))

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.

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How I considered this complaint

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

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My assessment

8. The complaint correspondence Ms X sent showed that she had sought to continue discussions with the Council to avoid the need for an appeal to the Tribunal. This was after it issued a mediation certificate having passed the deadline for mediation. I can understand the reason for Ms X doing that. But she had a right of appeal to the Tribunal against the content of the EHC Plan issued by the Council. She has used that right. It would not achieve any worthwhile purpose for us to investigate the matter of mediation. This is because we could not say what the outcome of any putative mediation would have been. And we could not comment on what provision the child needs.
9. At the time Ms X complained to us, any failure to make the provision specified in the EHC Plan the Council issued was speculative. Should the provision not have been made in September 2025, she would first need to complain to the Council and complete its complaints process before returning to us.

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Final decision

10. We will not investigate Ms X’s complaint because:

• This would be unlikely to lead to any worthwhile outcome in the matter of mediation. Ms X has used her right of appeal to a Tribunal regarding the content of her child’s EHC Plan. We could not reach any view about what mediation might have achieved, and we could not make any recommendation about the provision needed.
• Any failure to make the specified provision was speculative when Ms X complained to us, and she would need to complete the Council’s complaints process about any alleged failure before returning to us.

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Investigator's decision on behalf of the Ombudsman