R (on the application of ER) v Commissioner for Local Administration (Local Government Ombudsman)

Education – Special educational needs. The claimant was the mother of a child who had special educational needs (SEN). The local authority, in drawing up a new SEN statement, named a school which was not the claimant's preferred choice. The claimant appealed to the Special Educational Needs and Disability Tribunal, which ordered the SEN statement to name the claimant's preferred school. The defendant Local Government Ombudsman (LGO) rejected the claimant's complaint that the authority had failed to provide her child with any education between November 2007 and June 2008. Her application for judicial review was dismissed. The Court of Appeal, Civil Division, in dismissing the appeal, rejected the argument that the LGO had jurisdiction to investigate the consequences of a decision, if investigation of the decision itself was excluded by s 26(6) of the Local Government Act 1974.