You have done everything right. You have emailed the school, rung the council, kept the replies, and still your child is going without the support they are owed. Now someone tells you to “make a complaint” and you are staring at a wall of names that all sound the same.
The Tribunal. The Ombudsman. Judicial review. A formal complaint to the council. They are not interchangeable. Knowing how to escalate a Special Educational Needs and Disabilities (SEND) complaint starts with one question, not four: who actually has the power to fix this?
The most common mistake is not giving up. It is spending months in the wrong forum, only to be told at the end that it was never the body that could help you.
In England, four routes fix four different problems. The First-tier Tribunal (SEND) decides appeals about an Education, Health and Care plan (EHCP). The Local Government and Social Care Ombudsman investigates how the council behaved. Judicial review challenges an unlawful act or a blown deadline. A council’s own complaints process usually comes first. Match your problem to the right one.
This guide is about England, and the rights set by the Children and Families Act 2014 (CFA 2014). Scotland and Wales run different systems, so the routes below don’t transfer across the border.
Who do you actually complain to when SEND support fails?
You complain to whichever body has the power to fix your specific problem, and that depends on what went wrong. There is no single SEND complaints desk, which is exactly why so many parents and carers end up at the wrong door.
Think of it as four routes, not one ladder.
The first is the council’s own complaints process. For most problems with a local authority (LA), you start here, because the bodies above you nearly always expect it to have been tried first.
The second is the First-tier Tribunal (SEND), an independent court. It hears appeals about EHCP decisions: a refusal to assess or issue a plan, the wording of certain sections, and a decision to cease the plan. It also hears disability discrimination by a school.
The third is the Local Government and Social Care Ombudsman (LGSCO). It investigates “maladministration,” the way the council handled things: delay, lost paperwork, ignoring its own policy, failing to deliver provision it has agreed.
The fourth is judicial review (JR), a claim in the High Court. You use it when a public body has acted unlawfully or ignored an absolute legal duty, and no other route can put it right.
One distinction cuts through the confusion. Of the three formal external routes, two are about a decision, the Tribunal and judicial review, and one is about behaviour, the Ombudsman. Hold that in your head and the choice gets much simpler.
The hard part is that one situation can touch several routes. A late plan is both a missed deadline (a JR or Ombudsman matter) and, once it is finally issued, possibly a plan you disagree with (a Tribunal matter). The sections below sort out which is which.
What is the difference between the Tribunal, the Ombudsman and judicial review?
The difference is what each one can decide and what it can deliver, and getting it wrong costs you time you don’t have. The table sets the three formal routes side by side so you can see where your problem belongs.
| First-tier Tribunal (SEND) | Ombudsman (LGSCO) | |
|---|---|---|
| What it decides | An appeal about an EHCP decision | How the council behaved (maladministration) |
| Typical use | Refusal to assess or issue, the content of Sections B, F and I, ceasing a plan, school discrimination | Delay, lost paperwork, failing to deliver agreed provision, ignoring its own policy |
| Time limit | 2 months from the LA decision, or 1 month from a mediation certificate, whichever is later | Within 12 months of first knowing about the problem |
| What it can deliver | A binding decision the council must follow | Findings of fault, recommendations, and a remedy payment |
| The catch | You must usually consider mediation first | It cannot touch a matter that carries a right of appeal |
The Tribunal is where you go when you disagree with a decision the council has made about an EHCP. Its decisions bind the council. It does not enforce a plan that is already in place but not being delivered. For that, the routes are the Ombudsman or judicial review, which our guide to when an EHCP is not being delivered walks through in full.
The Ombudsman is free, independent, and good at recognition and redress. It investigates fault and can recommend the council apologise, put things right, and pay a remedy. As the LGSCO explains, you must normally finish the council’s own complaints process first: “We cannot look into your complaint before that happens.”
One boundary catches people out. The Ombudsman cannot investigate a matter that carries a right of appeal to a tribunal. So the content of an EHCP, a refusal to assess, and the school named in Section I all go to the Tribunal, never the Ombudsman.
That leaves judicial review for the third box: an unlawful act or a broken absolute duty with no appeal route, on the tight clock below.
Is mediation compulsory before you can appeal to the SEND Tribunal?
In most cases, yes, you must consider mediation before you can appeal an EHCP decision, but there is one important exception. Section 55 of the Children and Families Act 2014 is titled “Mediation.” It says you may appeal “only if a mediation adviser has issued a certificate.” That certificate is the key to the Tribunal. Without it, the Tribunal won’t register your appeal.
The exception is for placement-only appeals. Section 55(2) drops the requirement where the appeal concerns “only” the school named, the type of school specified, or the fact that no school is named. The gov.uk guidance puts it simply: you don’t have to consider mediation if your appeal is only about which school your child should attend (Section I).
This exception goes further than many parents realise. For a placement-only appeal, you do not have to consider mediation and you do not need a mediation certificate. You can go straight to the SEND Tribunal appeal form. The certificate only becomes a requirement when your appeal also challenges other parts of the plan, such as the description of needs in Section B or the support in Section F.
When mediation does apply, the deadlines run on their own clock, and they are tight.
Both figures are set in the Special Educational Needs and Disability Regulations 2014. The council must arrange mediation within 30 days of being told you want it, and the adviser must issue the certificate within 3 working days if you decline mediation.
The certificate itself is valid for one month. So once it is issued, your appeal deadline is whichever is later: two months from the council’s decision, or one month from the certificate date.
The appeal deadline is “whichever is later,” not whichever is sooner. The Tribunal must receive your appeal within 2 months of the council’s decision letter, or 1 month from the mediation certificate, whichever date falls later. Diarise both and work to the later one.
When should you use the First-tier Tribunal (SEND)?
You use the Tribunal when you want to challenge a decision the council has made about an EHCP. It is the only body that can overturn that decision and bind the council to a different one. It is independent of the council and free to use.
The Tribunal hears a defined list of appeals. They are a refusal to carry out an Education, Health and Care needs assessment, a refusal to issue a plan, and the content of Sections B, F and I. It also hears a refusal to amend after an annual review and a decision to cease the plan. The SEND Code of Practice, at Chapter 11, covers these disagreement-resolution routes in full.
It also hears one thing that is not an EHCP appeal at all: disability discrimination by a school. If a school has treated your child unfavourably because of their disability, you can bring a claim to the same Tribunal using form SEND4A (parent) or SEND4B (young person). That claim must be sent within 6 months of the discrimination taking place. Our guide to disability discrimination at school goes through how that claim works.
What the Tribunal doesn’t do is enforce a plan that is already final. If the provision in Section F is simply not happening, that is not a Tribunal matter, it is an Ombudsman or judicial review one.
If you lose and you think the Tribunal got the law wrong, you can ask to appeal onward to the Upper Tribunal. That appeal must be brought within 28 days of the written decision, and only on a point of law, not because you disagree with the outcome. For a sense of what a hearing is like, see what to expect at a SEND Tribunal.
Most appeals never reach a full hearing, because councils concede along the way. Filing the appeal is often what gets the council to negotiate, so don’t write it off as too daunting before you have started.
When can you go to the Local Government and Social Care Ombudsman?
You can go to the Ombudsman when the council has handled things badly and there is no right of appeal to the Tribunal. That makes it the natural home for delay, broken promises and non-delivery. It investigates the way the council acted, rather than the rightness of a decision.
Two conditions sit in front of you. First, you must normally exhaust the council’s own complaints process before the Ombudsman will look at it. The Ombudsman regards up to 16 weeks as a reasonable time for the council to respond before you escalate. Second, you must complain within 12 months of first knowing about the problem.
The boundary line is the one to remember: the Ombudsman cannot investigate a matter that carries a right of appeal. So an EHCP’s content, a refusal to assess, and a Section I placement go to the Tribunal. The way the council ran the process around them can still be an Ombudsman matter.
When the Ombudsman does investigate SEND, it overwhelmingly finds the council at fault.
That 94 per cent is worth carrying into any complaint. Education and children’s cases made up 27 per cent of the Ombudsman’s caseload in 2024-25. Yet they accounted for 47 per cent of all upheld investigations, against an overall upheld rate of 83 per cent. SEND complaints are, in other words, far more likely than average to be justified.
The Ombudsman cannot force the council the way a court can, but its recommendations are followed in almost every case, and it can recommend a remedy payment for the support your child went without.
When is judicial review the right route?
Judicial review is the right route when the council has acted unlawfully or ignored an absolute legal duty, and no appeal or Ombudsman route can put it right in time. It is a claim in the High Court, so it is the heaviest tool here, but for some breaches it is the only one with teeth.
The clearest examples in SEND are a blown statutory deadline and a failure to deliver provision the plan already specifies. A council that misses the 20-week deadline to issue a plan, or simply stops securing the Section F support, is breaching a duty under the CFA 2014. The duty to secure special educational provision sits in section 42, and a funding or staffing shortage is not a lawful excuse. Our guides to a missed EHCP deadline and to enforcing Section 42 cover these breaches in detail.
Judicial review runs on a strict clock. The Pre-Action Protocol for Judicial Review expects you to send a “letter before claim” to the council first. The letter sets out what it has got wrong and what you want it to do. That letter alone resolves a great many cases, because the council would rather act than defend a claim it is likely to lose.
If the letter doesn’t work, the claim form must be filed “promptly; and in any event not later than 3 months after the grounds to make the claim first arose.”
The three-month clock is unforgiving and starts when the grounds first arose, not when you finally lose patience with the council. If judicial review is even a possibility, get specialist legal advice early, before the window closes.
How do you complain about a school rather than the council?
A complaint about a school follows a different ladder from a council one, and starting it in the wrong place sends you straight back to the beginning. The route depends on the kind of school and the kind of problem.
For a state school in England, you contact the school first and follow its complaints procedure. Every state school must have one. If the school didn’t follow its own procedure properly, you can then complain to the Department for Education (DfE), and to Ofsted where it is relevant.
There is an important exception built into the school ladder. If a school is failing your child because of their disability, that is not an ordinary complaint. It is a disability discrimination claim to the SEND Tribunal, on the 6-month deadline noted above. Don’t let it get buried in a slow internal process while that clock runs.
If the school is not putting ordinary Special Educational Needs (SEN) support in place at all, that is a different battle again. Our guide to a school refusing to help covers it. Keep the threads separate so each one lands at the body that can actually act on it.
How do you complain about children’s social care?
A complaint about children’s social care has its own statutory three-stage process, separate from the education routes, and it carries firmer timescales than an ordinary council complaint. It applies to disabled children’s services such as short breaks, assessments and direct payments.
The process is set out in the Getting the Best from Complaints statutory guidance, made under the Children Act 1989 Representations Procedure (England) Regulations 2006. It runs in three stages, each with its own statutory timescale.
Stage 1 is local resolution. The team that knows your case tries to put it right, with a response within 10 working days, extendable to 20. Stage 2 is a formal investigation by an investigating officer alongside an independent person, within 25 working days and extendable to 65. Stage 3 is an independent review panel of three people, independent of the service, who review how Stage 2 was handled.
Most complaints are resolved at Stage 1. If you’re not satisfied, you can ask to move up, and the timescales above are statutory rather than discretionary. If you reach the end of all three stages and remain unhappy, the route then opens onto the Ombudsman, on the same 12-month clock.
What are the deadlines you cannot afford to miss?
The deadlines ruin more cases than any weak argument, because once one passes, the route behind it can close for good. Diarise every one that applies the moment a decision letter arrives.
The Tribunal appeal deadline is two months from the council’s decision, or one month from the mediation certificate, whichever is later, with the mediation contact deadline sitting inside it. Disability discrimination claims have a hard six-month limit, with no routine extension. Judicial review must be filed promptly and within three months of the grounds arising. The Ombudsman wants your complaint within twelve months of first knowing about the problem, and an onward appeal to the Upper Tribunal within twenty-eight days.
If you are close to any of these limits, lodge first and tidy up later. A weak-but-filed appeal can be strengthened; a strong-but-late one is usually dead. When in doubt, get the paperwork in.
A late deadline isn’t always fatal, but the exceptions are narrow and discretionary, so never plan around them. Treat every date as fixed.
What should you do first if you are not sure which route to take?
If you’re not sure, start by naming the problem precisely, because the right route falls out of the problem far more reliably than out of how angry you feel. Use the test below to point yourself at the right door before you spend a week drafting the wrong letter.
Whatever the route, three habits help every one of them. Put everything in writing and keep the replies, name the specific duty or decision you are challenging, and give clear but firm deadlines for a response.
If you’ve started in the wrong forum, you haven’t wasted everything. The evidence you gathered, the council’s own replies, all carry across to the right route. You just move them, and you move quickly. If you’ve already started a mandatory reconsideration or appeal letter, the assistant can help you check it is going to the right place.
Getting help
You don’t have to work this out on your own, and free expert help exists for exactly these decisions.
IPSEA (Independent Provider of Special Education Advice) gives free, legally based advice on EHCPs, appeals, mediation and complaints, with model letters and a helpline run by trained volunteers.
Your local SENDIASS (Special Educational Needs and Disabilities Information, Advice and Support Service) offers free, impartial support through reviews, complaints and appeals. You can find yours through the Council for Disabled Children.
Citizens Advice can help with the council’s complaints process, the Ombudsman, and finding legal aid for judicial review where you might qualify.
Cerebra runs a legal entitlements and problem-solving service for families of children with neurological conditions, with detailed guides on holding a council to its duties.
The free SEND Parents Help assistant pulls it together. It helps you pick the route, name the duty, and draft what to send, so you spend your energy on the right battle rather than the wrong forum.
Sources and further reading
Legislation
- Children and Families Act 2014, section 55 (mediation, and the Section I-only exemption)
- Children and Families Act 2014, section 42 (duty to secure provision in an EHCP)
- Children and Families Act 2014, section 51 (the right to appeal EHCP decisions)
- Pre-Action Protocol for Judicial Review (letter before claim and the 3-month time limit)
Official guidance
- Appeal an EHC plan decision: before you appeal (mediation requirement and deadlines)
- Appeal an EHC plan decision: appeal as a parent (the Tribunal appeal deadline rule)
- SEND Code of Practice: 0 to 25 years (Chapter 11, resolving disagreements)
- Form SEND21 mediation certificate (the certificate and mediation timescales)
- LGSCO: what we can and cannot look at (the tribunal-appeal boundary and 12-month limit)
- LGSCO annual review of complaints 2024-25 (the 94 per cent SEND fault figure)
- Complain about a school (state-school complaints, including the disability discrimination route)
- Children’s social care: Getting the Best from Complaints (the three-stage statutory process)
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