Summary: We will not investigate this complaint about how the Council handled matters relating to a child’s education because most of the complaint is late, Miss X has appealed to a Tribunal and we cannot investigate complaints about what happens in schools.

The complaint

1. Miss X complains about how the Council has handled her child’s education and the Education, Health and Care (EHC) Plan process, specifically it:
• Failed to intervene when the school provided an education that did not meet her child’s needs;
• Refused to assess her child’s EHC needs on two occasions; and
• Failed to follow a Tribunal order to secure an EHC needs assessment within the stipulated timescale.

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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 investigate complaints about ‘maladministration’ and ‘service failure’, which we call ‘fault’. We must also consider whether any fault has had an adverse impact on the person making the complaint, which we call ‘injustice’. We provide a free service, but must use public money carefully. We do not start or continue an investigation if we decide:

• there is not enough evidence of fault to justify investigating, or
• any injustice is not significant enough to justify our involvement, or
• we could not add to any previous investigation by the organisation, or
• further investigation would not lead to a different outcome

(Local Government Act 1974, section 24A(6), as amended, section 34(B))

4. 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)
5. We cannot investigate most complaints about what happens in schools. (Local Government Act 1974, Schedule 5, paragraph 5(2), as amended)
6. 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)
7. 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.

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

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

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My assessment

10. There are aspects of Miss X’s complaints in relation to her child’s education that go as far back as February 2023. Miss X complained to the Council in January 2025 and brought these complaints to the Ombudsman at the end of January 2026. We will not consider these late complaints. Miss X could have raised them sooner.
11. We will also not consider the more recent complaints about her child’s education because it is more appropriate for them to be addressed by the school using its complaints procedure, not the Council or the Ombudsman.
12. We cannot investigate the Council’s decisions not to assess her child’s EHC needs. 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. Miss X has appealed the decision to the Tribunal.
13. Miss X also complains of the Council not following the Tribunal’s decision to complete an assessment of her child’s needs by the stipulated deadline. The order was issued in November 2025, over seven months after the Council had sent its final response to Miss X’s complaint. We will not investigate this aspect of Miss X’s complaint because the Council has not responded to it. If Miss X’s concerns about this issue remain, she can complain to the Council and once she has exhausted the Council’s complaints process, if she remains unhappy, she can then bring this specific complaint to the Ombudsman.

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Final decision

14. We will not investigate Miss X’s complaints because they are late. We will not investigate Miss X’s complaint about the more recent matters because the Council has not had the opportunity to consider it and respond.

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Investigator's decision on behalf of the Ombudsman