Summary: We cannot investigate this complaint about the school named in an Education Health and Care Plan, or a failure to provide education. Mr X has appealed to the SEND Tribunal about the matter and therefore the law says we cannot investigate. Nor will we investigate Mr X’s further complaint about delays in the annual review process. When considering this complaint, the Council agreed to provide a suitable remedy for Mr X’s injustice and there are no wider public interest issues to justify investigating this complaint.

The complaint

1. Mr X complained about delays following his son’s (Y) Education Health and Care (EHC) Plan review meeting in October 2024.
2. Mr X also complained about the Councils decision not to change the school named in the final EHC Plan. Mr X said Y has not been able to attend the current school since October 2024 because it cannot meet his needs and therefore, he has not received education.
3. Mr X said the matters caused stress to Y and the family.

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The Ombudsman’s role and powers

4. The Local Government Act 1974 sets out our powers but also imposes restrictions on what we can investigate.
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 Tribunal in this decision statement.
7. We investigate complaints about ‘maladministration’ and ‘service failure’. In this statement, I have used the word fault to refer to these. We provide a free service but must use public money carefully. We may decide not to start or continue with an investigation if we are satisfied with the actions an organisation has taken or proposes to take. (Local Government Act 1974, section 24A(7), as amended)

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How I considered this complaint

8. I considered information provided by the complainant and the Council.
9. I considered the Ombudsman’s Assessment Code.

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My assessment

10. Mr X complained about Y being out of school since October 2024 due to his school not being able to meet his needs.
11. Mr X also complained, despite his request, the Council did not name a different school in Y’s EHC Plan following the annual review in October 2024, when it shared the final plan in July 2025.
12. Mr X has appealed to the Tribunal about the content of Y’s EHC Plan, including the school the Council named in it. As outlined in paragraph five, we cannot investigate a complaint where a person has appealed to a Tribunal about the same matter. This is set out in law and therefore we cannot investigate this part of the complaint.
13. Nor can we investigate a lack of education. The courts have established that if someone has appealed to the Tribunal, the law says we cannot investigate any matter which was part of, was connected to, or could have been part of, the appeal to the Tribunal.
14. This means that if a child or young person is not attending school, and we decide the reason for non-attendance is linked to, or is a consequence of, a parent or young person’s disagreement about the special educational provision or the educational placement in the EHC Plan, we cannot investigate a lack of special educational provision, or alternative educational provision.
15. However, we can consider matters which occurred before the Council shared the final EHC Plan. Therefore, we considered the Councils actions after the review meeting in October 2024.
16. Following an annual review, a Council has 12 weeks to issue the child with a final EHC Plan. However, the Council did not issue Y’s final plan until July 2025 and this was therefore delayed by around six months. If we were to investigate it is likely we would find fault causing injustice because of this.
17. We therefore asked the Council to consider remedying the injustice caused by its delays in finalising the EHC Plan by paying Mr X a symbolic payment to resolve the complaint early.
18. To its credit, the Council agreed to resolve the complaint and will pay Mr X £500 within six weeks of this decision.
19. I do not consider there are any wider public interest issues to justify us investigating this complaint and therefore we will not investigate.

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Final decision

20. We cannot investigate Mr X’s complaint about the school named in Y’s EHC Plan because he has appealed to the Tribunal. We will not investigate the remainder of his complaint because the Council has agreed to resolve the complaint early by providing a proportionate remedy for the injustice caused to Mr X.

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Investigator's decision on behalf of the Ombudsman