Summary: We cannot investigate Miss X’s complaint about the Council’s failure to provide alternative educational provision. Miss X has appealed to a tribunal and so the law prevents us from investigating.

The complaint

1. Miss X complains the Council failed to provide her child (Y) with alternative educational provision, despite being unable to attend school.
2. Miss X says this caused Y to lose educational provision and caused her significant distress.

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The Ombudsman’s role and powers

3. The Local Government Act 1974 sets out our powers but also imposes restrictions on what we can investigate.
4. 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)
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. Miss X disagreed with the educational setting named in Y’s Education, Health and Care (EHC) plan for his first year in secondary school and so appealed to the Tribunal.
9. The Tribunal decided in July 2026 that the setting was suitable for Y to attend from September 2026.
10. Miss X disagreed with this and said the setting cannot meet Y’s needs. Miss X then appealed to the Upper Tribunal. She also asked the Council to provide alternative education for Y while they were out of school, but it refused to.
11. 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. (R (on application of Milburn) v Local Government and Social Care Ombudsman [2023] EWCA Civ 207)
12. This means that if a child or young person is not attending school, and we decide the reason for non-attendance is linked to, or is a consequence of, a parent or young person’s disagreement about the special educational provision or the educational placement in the EHC plan, we cannot investigate a lack of special educational provision, or alternative educational provision.
13. Miss X has appealed to the Tribunal about this matter and her subsequent appeal to the Upper Tribunal is ongoing. Therefore, we cannot investigate this complaint.

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Final decision

14. We cannot investigate Miss X’s complaint because she has appealed to the Tribunal and, therefore, the law prevents us from investigating.

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Investigator's decision on behalf of the Ombudsman