Summary: We will not investigate part of Mrs X’s complaint about the Council’s failure to provide education for her child between 2022 and 2025. This is because part of it is late and there are no good reasons why Mrs X could not have complained sooner. We cannot look at another part because Mrs X appealed to a Tribunal, and the law does not allow us to investigate. For the remainder, the Council upheld the complaint and provided a satisfactory remedy, and an investigation would not achieve anything further.

The complaint

1. Mrs X complained the Council did not do enough to secure education provision for her child (Y) while they were not attending school. She said Y had not been in school since 2022 and the Council’s failure to secure education caused significant disruption to her and her family.

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The Ombudsman’s role and powers

2. The Local Government Act 1974 sets out our powers but also imposes restrictions on what we can investigate.
3. 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)
4. 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.
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. 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

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

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My assessment

9. Y is a child who has an Education, Health, and Care (EHC) Plan. The available evidence shows that Y was not attending school since 2022. In 2024, Mrs X asked the Council for a tutor.
10. In October 2024, following a review of Y’s EHC Plan, the Council named an education placement for Y, and Mrs X appealed that decision to the Tribunal. Mrs X said she did not believe the named school was the right environment for Y. Mrs X complained to us in August 2025.
11. We will not investigate any part of Mrs X’s complaint that occurred before August 2024. This is because a complaint about the Council’s actions happened more than 12 months before Mrs X’s complaint to the Ombudsman and is therefore late. I have not seen good reasons why Mrs X could not have complained to us before August 2025, and so we will not investigate.
12. We cannot investigate how the Council delivered the content of Y’s EHC Plan to them or the education they received following the final EHC Plan in October 2024 because Mrs X appealed to the SEND Tribunal.
13. 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. The period we cannot investigate starts from the date the appealable decision is made and given to the parents.
15. The reason Y did not receive the content of their EHC Plan between October 2024 and summer 2025 was because of Mrs X’s disagreement about the suitability of the school. Therefore, we cannot investigate.
16. Of the parts of Mrs X’s complaint we could consider between August 2024 and October 2024, in its complaint response the Council upheld Mrs X’s complaint. The Council offered Mrs X a symbolic payment in line with the Ombudsman’s Guidance on Remedies. Consequently, an investigation is unlikely to achieve a different outcome, and so we will not investigate this complaint.

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Final decision

17. We will not investigate part of Mrs X’s complaint because it is late. We cannot investigate part of the complaint because Mrs X appealed to a tribunal. For the remainder, an investigation would not achieve a different outcome.

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Investigator's decision on behalf of the Ombudsman