Summary: We will not investigate this complaint about the assessment of the complainant’s child’s education, health and care needs and the content of her Education Health and Care plan. The complaint about the delay in the assessment is late and there are no good reasons to investigate it now. By law, we cannot investigate the complaint about the content of the Education Health and Care plan because the complainant has used her right to appeal to the First-tier Tribunal (Special Educational Needs and Disability).

The complaint

1. The complainant, Ms X, complains that the Council failed to issue her child with an Education Health and Care (EHC) plan within the statutory timescale, and unreasonably named a mainstream setting which could not meet her needs.

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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 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. Ms X’s child has special educational needs and an EHC plan. Ms X complains that the process of assessing her child’s needs and producing the EHC plan was flawed. She says it was subject to significant delay, taking longer than the statutory 20-week timescale, and failed to properly identify her child’s needs.
9. Ms X says that, as a result of the failure to identify her child’s needs, the EHC plan names a mainstream setting which is unsuitable for her. She has been compelled to incur significant childcare costs and to use her right to appeal to the Tribunal.
10. The Ombudsman will not investigate the part of Ms X’s complaint relating to the delay in the EHC plan because it is late. 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. The correspondence Ms X has provided shows that the EHC plan was issued in November 2024. Ms X did not come to the Ombudsman until December 2025. Her complaint is therefore late. The correspondence shows that the Council made her aware of the Ombudsman’s timescales in March 2025. There are no good reasons for us to investigate this part of the complaint now.
11. Ms X’s appeal to the Tribunal means that, by law, the Ombudsman cannot investigate matters which relate to the EHC plan’s content. The courts have held that this restriction prevents us considering both the outcome, such as the setting named, and the assessments and reports which were material to it. We cannot therefore investigate whether the Council was at fault in how it assessed Ms X’s child’s needs.

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Final decision

12. We will not investigate Ms X’s complaint. Her complaint about the delay in the assessment is late and there are no good reasons to investigate it now. By law, we cannot investigate the complaint about the content of the Education Health and Care plan because Ms X has used her right to appeal to the Tribunal.

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Investigator's decision on behalf of the Ombudsman