Summary: We cannot investigate Mrs Y’s complaint the Council failed to arrange alternative educational provision or social care provision for her child. This is because these matters overlap with a SEND Tribunal appeal about her child’s Education, Health and Care Plan.

The complaint

1. Mrs Y’s child, Z, has an Education, Health and Care Plan. She complains the Council:
1. failed to arrange the provision in Z’s Plan and meet its statutory duties;
2. refused to allow trusted, known tutors to work with Z and offered alternative provision that was inaccessible because of Z’s severe anxiety and trauma;
3. delayed and refused to arrange Z’s education otherwise than at school (EOTAS) provision approved for September 2025; and,
4. withdrew and failed to secure personal assistant support after unlawfully closing Z’s case in October 2025. She says the Council insisted on a home visit to complete a reassessment, despite Mrs Y’s reasonable adjustment request to instead carry out the assessment based on existing professional evidence because a home visit would have caused Z significant distress.

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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) considers appeals against council decisions regarding special educational needs. We refer to it as the SEND Tribunal in this decision statement.
5. The law says we cannot normally investigate a complaint unless we are satisfied the organisation knows about the complaint and has had an opportunity to investigate and reply. However, we may decide to investigate if we consider it would be unreasonable to notify the organisation of the complaint and give it an opportunity to investigate and reply. (Local Government Act 1974, section 26(5), section 34(B)6)

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How I considered this complaint

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

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My assessment

8. Regarding parts a to c of the above complaint, I have considered matters from March 2025 onwards. This is because we previously investigated these points up until March 2025 when Mrs Y told the Council she would no longer electively home educate Z. We do not investigate the same matters twice.
9. However, we cannot investigate Mrs Y’s complaint about the Council’s failure to arrange alternative provision from March 2025 or Z’s EOTAS package from September 2025. During this time, there was an ongoing SEND Tribunal about Mrs Y’s request for EOTAS, as well as the special educational provision set out in Section F of Z’s Plan. Case law has decided that we cannot look at the consequences of the Council’s decisions when the complainant has appealed to the Tribunal. This means we cannot investigate the consequence of the Council’s decision to name an unsuitable school or specify inadequate Section F provision in the Plan, which is that Z did not receive suitable educational provision. The alleged fault in the Council’s decision-making is directly linked to Mrs Y’s appeal. This means that we cannot investigate these matters between March 2025 and March 2026 when the SEND Tribunal made its decision.
10. Any complaint about the Council’s failure to comply with the SEND Tribunal order from March 2026 and arrange Z’s EOTAS package is premature. It is reasonable to expect Mrs Y to first complain to the Council about this, so it has the chance to investigate and reply. If Mrs Y remains unhappy with the Council’s final complaint response, she may wish to make a fresh complaint to the Ombudsman.
11. We cannot investigate Mrs Y’s complaint about Z’s personal assistant provision and the Council’s decision that a home visit was necessary as part of its reassessment process. As part of Mrs Y’s appeal about Z’s social care provision, the SEND Tribunal considered these matters. The Tribunal considered the Council’s evidence explaining the reasons why a home visit was required and the adjustments it had offered to limit the time spent in the home. The Tribunal said it could not order the parents to allow the Council’s children’s services team to carry out a home visit. But, equally, the SEND Tribunal decided it was not proper to direct the Council to reassess without undertaking a home visit. This was because a home visit, in these circumstances, was in line with professional practice. Without such a visit, the Council risked making a flawed decision. The SEND Tribunal did not accept some of Mrs Y’s wording around Z’s social care provision because, without the social care reassessment, there was a lack of evidence to show what provision should be offered. So, we cannot investigate part d of Mrs Y’s complaint because the SEND Tribunal has already considered it.

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Investigator's decision on behalf of the Ombudsman