Summary: We cannot investigate this complaint about the process leading to the naming of a mainstream school in the complainant’s son’s Education Health and Care plan, and about the decision itself. This is because the complainant has used his right to appeal to the First-tier Tribunal (Special Educational Needs and Disability).

The complaint

1. The complainant, Mr X, complains that the Council was at fault in the process of his son’s education health and care needs assessment, and that the Education Health and Care (EHC) plan it issued does not meet his son’s 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 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)
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 the complainant.
6. I considered the Ombudsman’s Assessment Code.

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My assessment

7. Mr X’s son has special educational needs and an EHC plan, which the Council issued in September 2024. Mr X complains that there was fault in the process of assessing his son’s needs. He complains that, as well as administrative failings in the course of the needs assessment, the Council’s decision to name a mainstream school, father than the specialist setting he asked for, was flawed. He says the fact that the draft EHC plan was issued at the beginning of the school holiday disadvantaged him in identifying a suitable placement, and the Council failed to properly consider his representations and his son’s needs.
8. We cannot investigate Mr X’s complaint. It is not for the Ombudsman to express a view on whether the school named in the EHC plan can meet his son’s needs. Neither can we investigate the alleged flaws in the assessment process, which are not in any case separable from the outcome of the assessment. This is because the correspondence Mr X has provided shows that he has exercised his right to appeal to the Tribunal. This places the matter outside our jurisdiction and, by law, we cannot intervene.

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Final decision

9. We cannot investigate Mr X’s complaint because he has used his right to appeal to the Tribunal.

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Investigator's decision on behalf of the Ombudsman