The Ombudsman's final decision
Summary: We will not investigate this complaint about the Council’s involvement with the complainant’s family. This is because we cannot consider matters linked to ongoing court proceedings. There is nothing we can add to the Council’s response which explained court proceedings need to conclude before it will consider the complaint
The complaint
The complainant, whom I shall refer to as Miss X, complained about the Council’s involvement with her family and the conduct of a social worker. Miss X wants her social worker changing and is unhappy with the level of contact she has with her children. Miss X says the Council has failed to follow the Court’s directions. The Council has said it will not consider Miss X’s complaint while there are ongoing court proceedings.
The Ombudsman’s role and powers
The Local Government Act 1974 sets out our powers but also imposes restrictions on what we can investigate.
We investigate complaints about ‘maladministration’ and ‘service failure’, which we call ‘fault’. We must also consider whether any fault has had an adverse effect on the person making the complaint, which we call ‘injustice’. We provide a free service, but must use public money carefully. We may decide not to start an investigation if the tests set out in our Assessment Code are not met. (Local Government Act 1974, section 24A(6), as amended) 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) The law says we cannot normally investigate a complaint when someone could take the matter to court. However, we may decide to investigate if we consider it would be unreasonable to expect the person to go to court. (Local Government Act 1974, section 26(6)(c), as amended) The courts have said we can decide not to investigate a complaint about any action by a council concerning a matter which is outside our jurisdiction. (R (on the application of M) v Commissioner for Local Administration [2006] EHWCC 2847 (Admin))
How I considered this complaint
I considered information provided by the complainant and the Council.
I considered the Ombudsman’s Assessment Code.
My assessment
We will not start an investigation into Miss X’s complaint. The Ombudsman cannot consider matters which are linked to ongoing court proceedings or which could reasonably be raised in court. We cannot consider complaints about the preparation, collation, and analysis of evidence for court proceedings. This includes reports written by social workers or the evidence given in court. We cannot investigate complaints about a council’s failure to follow a court’s directions. Such matters need to be raised with the Court and are outside our jurisdiction with no discretion to consider them.
Any actions of the social worker involved in Miss X’s case are too closely linked to the ongoing court action to be separated. Also, we could never say the social worker should be changed. That is a decision for the Council.
We also cannot consider the Council’s decision not to investigate Miss X’s complaint. This is because it is directly linked to matters outside our jurisdiction. The exception set out at paragraph 6 therefore applies.
Once the court proceedings have finished, Miss X can resume her complaint with the Council. If she was unhappy with the Council’s response, she could make a fresh complaint to the Ombudsman. We could then assess her complaint. We would need to decide if there are matters within our jurisdiction which we should consider.
Final decision
We will not investigate Miss X’s complaint because of ongoing court proceedings. It is open to Miss X to pursue her complaint with the Council once the proceedings are complete.
Investigator's decision on behalf of the Ombudsman