The Ombudsman's final decision
Summary: We cannot investigate Mrs X’s complaint about the Council’s refusal to issue her child an Education Health and Care Plan. This is because Mrs X has used her right of appeal against the Council’s decision.
The complaint
Mrs X complains the Council have refused to issue her child, Y with an Educational Health and Care (EHC) Plan.
The Ombudsman’s role and powers
The Local Government Act 1974 sets out our powers but also imposes restrictions on what we can investigate.
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) The First-tier Tribunal (Special Educational Needs and Disability) considers appeals against council decisions regarding special educational needs. We refer to it as the SEND Tribunal in this decision statement.
How I considered this complaint
I considered information provided by the complainant and the Council.
I considered the Ombudsman’s Assessment Code.
My assessment
Mrs X has a child Y. Mrs X asked the Council to assess Y for an EHC Plan. The Council decided not to issue Y an EHC Plan.
The SEND Tribunal considers appeals against decisions not to issue EHC Plans. We understand Mrs X has appealed to the tribunal. This places the complaint outside of our jurisdiction.
We will also not investigate how the Council dealt with Mrs X’s complaint. While we recognise there have been significant delays in the Council’s complaint process, it is not a good use of public resources to investigate complaints about complaint handling when we are not looking at the substantive issue.
Final decision
We will not investigate Mrs X’s complaint. Mrs X has used her right of appeal against the Council’s decision.
Investigator's decision on behalf of the Ombudsman