Summary: We will not investigate Mrs X’s complaint about the Council’s handling of her child’s Education, Health and Care needs assessment. Mrs X had the right to appeal to the First-tier Tribunal (Special Educational Needs and Disability) and it would have been reasonable for her to do so.

The complaint

1. Mrs X complains about the Council’s handling of her child’s Education, Health and Care (EHC) needs assessment.

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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. 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)
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.

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How I considered this complaint

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

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My assessment

7. Parents who are unhappy with a council’s decision not to carry out an EHC needs assessment or with the content of an EHC plan have a right of appeal to the Tribunal. It is the mechanism set up by Parliament for parents to challenge such decisions.
8. Mrs X says the Council did not follow the SEND code of Practice when carrying out her child’s EHC needs assessment. She says it refused to use relevant information, caused unnecessary delays, failed to communicate and did not take a person-centred approach. She also disagrees with the Educational Psychologist’s report.
9. We will not investigate this complaint. Mrs X had a right to appeal the content of the EHC plan, including the Educational Psychologist’s report, at the Tribunal. It would have been reasonable to expect Mrs X to use her right of appeal to the Tribunal.
10. Mrs X also says the Council’s stage 2 complaint response relied on inaccurate information. As we are not investigating the substantive complaint, we will not investigate this issue separately.

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Final decision

11. We will not investigate this complaint because Mrs X had the right to appeal to the First-tier Tribunal (Special Educational Needs and Disability) and it would be reasonable for her to do so.

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Investigator's decision on behalf of the Ombudsman