The Ombudsman's final decision
Summary: We will not investigate Ms X’s complaint about how the Council calculate her special guardianship allowance. This is because we could not add to the investigation carried out by the Council.
The complaint
Ms X complains about how the Council calculated her special guardianship allowances over serval years.
The Ombudsman’s role and powers
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 we could not add to any previous investigation by the organisation. (Local Government Act 1974, section 24A(6), as amended, section 34(B))
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 statutory children’s complaints procedure was set up to provide children, young people and those involved in their welfare with access to an independent, thorough and prompt response to their concerns. Because of this, if a council has investigated something under the statutory children’s complaint process, the Ombudsman would not normally re-investigate it.
The Council responded to Ms X’s complaint under the statutory complaints procedure. The investigation largely upheld Ms X’s complaint. The Council apologised to Ms X, has implemented a number of actions to ensure the issues that arose do not reoccur and has arranged a financial reassessment.
I will not investigate Ms X’s complaint. Further investigation of Ms X’s complaints by the Ombudsman is unlikely to add to the Council’s responses. The investigation and consideration completed at stages two and three have been detailed and thorough. The actions the Council has agreed to appear reasonable given the faults identified.
Final decision
We will not investigate Ms X’s complaint because we could not add to the investigation carried out by the Council.
Investigator's decision on behalf of the Ombudsman