The Ombudsman's final decision
Summary: We will not investigate this complaint about how the Council has dealt with Ms X and her daughter. This is because Ms X’s contact with her daughter is subject to a court order and she would need to go to court to have this changed or enforced.
The complaint
Ms X complains the Council has failed to protect her and her daughter from her abusive ex partner. Ms X says she is denied contact with her daughter who is subject to controlling behaviour by her ex-partner.
Ms X says the Council has refused to investigate her complaints under the Children’s Statutory Complaints process and has dealt with her concerns under its corporate complaints process.
Ms X says the Council’s actions have put her and her daughter at risk and caused her significant distress.
The Ombudsman’s role and powers
The Ombudsman investigates complaints about ‘maladministration’ and ‘service failure’, which we call ‘fault’. We must also consider whether any fault has had an adverse impact on the person making the complaint, which we call ‘injustice’. We provide a free service, but must use public money carefully. We do not start or may decide not to continue with an investigation if we decide there is not enough evidence of fault to justify investigating. (Local Government Act 1974, section 24A(6)) The Local Government Act 1974 sets out our powers but also imposes restrictions on what we can investigate.
We cannot investigate a complaint about the start of court action or what happened in court. (Local Government Act 1974, Schedule 5/5A, paragraph 1/3, as amended)
How I considered this complaint
I considered information provided by the complainant and the Council.
I considered the Ombudsman’s Assessment Code.
My assessment
Ms X’s contact with her daughter was subject to private family court proceedings. The Council was involved in providing assessments to the court but the final decision about contact between her and her daughter was made by the court. We have already issued decisions saying we will not investigate what happened in court regarding the information the Council provided to the court. We also noted that the court had considered matters regarding Ms X’s daughter’s welfare.
If Ms X wishes to have the court order regarding contact with her daughter changed or if she believes her ex-partner has breached the terms of the order she will need to take this matter back to court. The Council has no power to overturn the court order.
There is insufficient evidence of fault in how the Council has responded to Ms X’s complaints. Complaints about safeguarding matters do not fall under the Statutory Children’s Complaints process. Therefore there would be no fault in the Council dealing with these under its corporate complaints process. In any case we could not investigate the substantive matter Ms X has raised as this is linked to matters which have been before the court.
Final decision
We will not investigate Ms X’s complaint because it is about the terms of a court order and we cannot investigate complaints about what happened in court or decisions made by the courts.
Investigator's decision on behalf of the Ombudsman