Summary: We will not investigate this complaint about the Council’s failure to complete Mrs X’s daughter’s Education Health and Care needs assessment. Miss X has already appealed to the Tribunal about this matter and therefore the law says we cannot investigate. 

The complaint

1. Mrs X complains that the Council failed to complete her daughter Miss Y’s Education, Health and Care (EHC) Plan. She says her daughter has never received the correct support since starting secondary school. She states that the Council withheld an Educational Psychologist’s addendum dated July 2025 from its Special Educational Need and Disability (SEND) Panel and then refused to issue an EHC Plan. She also says the Council provided no interim education and carried out no safeguarding checks.

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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 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)
4. 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

5. I considered information provided by the complainant and the Council.
6. I considered the Ombudsman’s Assessment Code.

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My assessment

7. Mrs X complains that the Council refused to carry out EHC needs assessments for Miss Y and that Miss Y has not received the correct support since her time at the secondary school. She says this caused distress and delayed Miss Y’s access to additional support.
8. Mrs X has now used her right of appeal to the Tribunal. This places the appealed matters, and anything closely linked to them, outside our jurisdiction. The failures to carry out EHC needs assessments and to provide interim support are not separable from the issues before the Tribunal. We therefore have no powers to consider these parts of her complaint.
9. I will not investigate Mrs X’s complaint because she has appealed to the SEND Tribunal.

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Final decision

10. We cannot investigate Mrs X’s complaint because she has appealed to the SEND Tribunal, and the law prevents us from considering the matter.

Investigator’s decision on behalf of the Ombudsman

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Investigator's decision on behalf of the Ombudsman