The Ombudsman's final decision
Summary: We will not investigate this complaint about the Council’s decision not to provide Mr X an Independent Domestic Violence Advisor. That is because there is insufficient evidence of fault to justify investigating.
The complaint
Mr X complained the Council did not provide him an Independent Domestic Violence Advisor (IDVA) after it received a referral for him from the Police, and a witness and victim support organisation (the Organisation). He said the Council will not allow him to self-refer to an IDVA.
Mr X also said the Council wrongly told the family court that his ex-partner had a Restraining Order in place against him. He wants the Council to apologise and provide a letter correcting the inaccurate information provided.
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, or further investigation would not lead to a different outcome.
(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
The IDVA Service In its complaint response, the Council said the Police had completed a domestic abuse risk assessment for Mr X which scored his level of risk as ‘standard’. It said that meant Mr X did not meet the criteria for a referral into the IDVA Service. It said the Police referred Mr X for support to the Organisation.
The Council said the Organisation incorrectly told Mr X it would refer him to the IDVA Service, but that it did not make that referral. The Council said its IDVA policy meant people could not self-refer.
Although Mr X believes the Council received an IDVA referral from the Police and the Organisation I have seen no evidence to support this. It’s decision not to accept self-referrals is set out in its IDVA policy. Therefore, we will not investigate as there is not enough evidence of fault in the Council’s actions to justify our involvement.
Following its complaint response to Mr X, the Council received a domestic abuse risk assessment for Mr X from a health worker. The IDVA Service triaged the referral and passed it back to the referring professional, as based on the information provided, Mr X did not meet the criteria for IDVA services. Although Mr X disagrees with that decision, there is insufficient evidence of fault in how the Council made that decision to justify our investigating.
Inaccurate information provided to Court Mr X complained to the Council in 2021 about its involvement with his child Y, in 2019, and about information it provided to the Children and Family Court Advisory and Support Service (Cafcass) in 2020.
In the Council’s complaint response, it apologised for providing inaccurate information to Cafcass. It said it had failed to verify information with him following referrals it received in 2019 about Y and made assumptions based on information provided by his ex-partner. In July 2022, the Council provided Mr X a letter to share with the Court setting out the inaccuracies.
We will not investigate this complaint because further investigation would not lead to a different outcome. The Council has apologised and provided a letter to Mr X for the Court. Although Mr X feels the inaccurate information provided by the Council affected his contact arrangements with Y; the Court decided those contact arrangements, and actions of the Court are outside our jurisdiction.
Final decision
We will not investigate Mr X’s complaint because there is not enough evidence of fault to justify our involvement.
Investigator's decision on behalf of the Ombudsman