The Ombudsman's final decision
Summary: We will not investigate Mr X’s complaint about a child protection assessment in 2020. There are no good reasons the late complaint rule should not apply.
The complaint
The complainant, whom I shall call Mr X, says the Council’s children services team in 2020 produced an inaccurate assessment.
The Ombudsman’s role and powers
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) We investigate 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 continue an investigation if we decide another body better placed to consider this complaint. (Local Government Act 1974, section 24A(6), as amended) We normally expect someone to refer the matter to the Information Commissioner if they have a complaint about data protection. However, we may decide to investigate if we think there are good reasons. (Local Government Act 1974, section 24A(6), as amended)
How I considered this complaint
I considered information provided by Mr X.
I considered the Ombudsman’s Assessment Code.
My assessment
The Council’s children services’ team received allegations about Mr X’s children’ care in August 2020. They carried out a child protection investigation and produced an assessment document. Mr X says this assessment document is inaccurate. He says he complained about it in January 2022.
We cannot investigate events known to Mr X for more than 12 months without good reasons. Here there are not, and if there were we still would not investigate his complaint. Mr X has the right to ask records are ‘rectified’. This means any factual faults are corrected. If the Council refuses to do so, he can complain to the Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO). Parliament set up the ICO to consider data protection disputes which includes ‘right to rectification’ disputes. The ICO are better placed than us to consider if the Council should change its records particularly because there are complex exemptions for child protection case files.
Final decision
We will not investigate Mr X’s complaint because there are no good reasons the late complaint rule should not apply.
Investigator's decision on behalf of the Ombudsman