The Ombudsman's final decision
Summary: We will not investigate this complaint about the actions of the Council’s children’s services between 2014 and 2015. This is because we could not carry out a fair, robust, and meaningful investigation so long after the events complained about.
The complaint
The complainant, who I will call Miss X, complains that the Council failed to accommodate her under Section 20 of the Children Act 1989, when as a child she presented herself as homeless to the Council in 2014. Miss X says the Council has not properly considered her reasons for not asking it to escalate her complaint sooner.
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)) We cannot investigate late complaints unless we decide there are good reasons. Late complaints are when someone takes more than 12 months to complain to us about something a council has done. (Local Government Act 1974, sections 26B and 34D, 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
Miss X is a care leaver and therefore receives support from an advocacy service. In May 2016, Miss X’s advocate supported Miss X in raising a complaint to the Council, the Council responded in October that year advising how Miss X could progress her complaint to the next stage of the complaints process. In 2022, Miss X’s advocate contacted the Council asking it to escalate her complaint, but the Council refused.
I will not investigate the Council’s decision not to progress Miss X’s complaint when she contacted it in 2022, because there is insufficient evidence of fault in how it considered the request. The Council’s response shows that it considered and accepted the reasons Miss X gave for not contacting it sooner but concluded that investigation would not lead to a different outcome due to the amount of time that has passed, because staff and policies have changed.
I will not investigate the substantive element of Miss X’s complaint because I am not satisfied that we could carry out a robust, fair, and meaningful investigation so long after the events complained about.
Final decision
We will not investigate Miss X’s complaint because the events happened too long ago.
Investigator's decision on behalf of the Ombudsman