What the Ombudsman is, and what it judges
The Local Government and Social Care Ombudsman investigates council maladministration in SEND – mainly delay and failure to deliver EHC plan provision – but not decisions carrying a SEND Tribunal appeal right. “Maladministration” means the council got the process wrong: missed deadlines, failed to act on a decision it had already made, or handled the family badly. The Ombudsman's powers come from Part III of the Local Government Act 1974, and its job is to look at how a council carried out its functions, not to retake the decision itself.
The boundary: conduct, not appealable decisions
For a SEND or complaints officer, the line that matters is the appeal-rights carve-out. The Ombudsman can look at delay in an EHC needs assessment or annual review, a failure to secure the provision named in Section F, a failure to implement a remedy the Tribunal has ordered, and how a council runs its personal budgets and Local Offer. It cannot investigate anything that carries a right of appeal to the First-tier Tribunal (SEND) – a refusal to assess, a refusal to issue a plan, the content of the plan, or a decision to cease one. That bar is in section 26(6) of the Local Government Act 1974: where the person had a right of appeal to a tribunal, the Ombudsman stays out unless it was not reasonable to expect them to use it. So a complaint about a decision belongs at the SEND Tribunal; a complaint about how the council behaved belongs at the Ombudsman.
The two gates a complaint must pass
Before the Ombudsman will investigate, two conditions normally apply, and both are worth knowing when you respond. First, the complainant must have used the council's own complaints procedure and had its final response – the Ombudsman is the step after the council, not instead of it. Second, the complaint must usually be brought within 12 months of the person becoming aware of the problem (section 26B of the same Act), though the Ombudsman has discretion to extend that. Replying accurately on these points lets you resolve genuine fault early and decline matters that sit outside the Ombudsman's remit, rather than conceding or over-defending.
On outcomes: the Ombudsman makes recommendations, not legally enforceable orders – an apology, a service improvement, or a financial remedy meant to put the person back in the position they would have been in. Compliance is high and non-compliance is published, so a finding carries real reputational weight even though it is not a court order. The Ombudsman's own SEND factsheet sets out the same boundary, the final-response gate, and the 12-month limit in one place.
Where the law comes from
Related
This page is general information, not clinical or legal advice.