Summary: We will not investigate Mrs X’s complaint about delays in amending an Education Health and Care Plan as it was reasonable to expect her to appeal to the Tribunal. We will not look at any provision missed as its not significant enough to warrant an investigation or remedy.

The complaint

1. Mrs X says the Council delayed in arranging a school place for her child D. She says it gave her inaccurate information about this process.

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The Ombudsman’s role and powers

2. 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)
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 any injustice is not significant enough to justify our involvement (Local Government Act 1974, section 24A(6), as amended, section 34(B)).

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How I considered this complaint

4. I considered information provided by Mrs X which included the Council’s replies to her.
5. I considered the Ombudsman’s Assessment Code.

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My assessment

6. The Council provided a final Education Health and Care Plan (EHC Plan) for D in July 2024. It did not name a specific school. It said the education setting should be a mainstream provider. Mrs X says she did not know which school D would be attending until early September. She says the uncertainty over the summer holidays caused her stress and she spent time trying to sort it out.
7. Mrs X also says the Council did not give her an accurate account of the contact between the Council and the school between July and September.

Analysis

8. If Mrs X was unhappy that the EHC Plan did not name a specific school, it is reasonable to expect her to have appealed to the Tribunal as that is the process Parliament provided. We cannot look at the content of the EHC Plan, including how or why the Council amended it to name a school because of this appeal right.
9. Once the Council issued the final EHC Plan in July 2024 it had to ensure it provided D with the education and support set out in the EHC Plan. The amount of education and support D missed in September 2024 is not significant enough to justify our investigation or warrant a remedy.

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Final decision

10. We will not investigate Mrs X’s complaint because it is reasonable to expect her to appeal the content of an EHC Plan and the lack of provision is not significant enough to warrant an investigation.

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Investigator's decision on behalf of the Ombudsman