The Ombudsman's final decision
Summary: We will not investigate Ms X’s complaint about the way the Council dealt with her complaint about its handling of her safeguarding concerns about her child. There is not enough evidence of fault in the Council’s handling to justify us investigating. It would also be reasonable for Ms X to take any issues she has with the existing care and contact arrangements for her child back to court.
The complaint
Ms X complains about the Council’s refusal to consider her complaints under the statutory procedure for children social care, denying her the opportunity to have her complaint reviewed by an independent panel. Ms X believes the Council has misrepresented her and closed its case for her child prematurely. She wants the Council to reconsider her safeguarding concerns so her child is protected.
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 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) 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: there is not enough evidence of fault to justify investigating, or we cannot achieve the outcome someone wants (Local Government Act 1974, section 24A(6), as amended, section 34(B)) If there was no fault in how the organisation made its decision, we cannot question the outcome. (Local Government Act 1974, section 34(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 law sets out a three-stage procedure for councils to follow when looking at complaints about children’s social care services. The accompanying statutory guidance, ‘Getting the Best from Complaints’, explains councils’ responsibilities in more detail.
This procedure does not typically include child protection or safeguarding concerns, which councils will usually consider under their corporate complaint procedure. Because of this, we are unlikely to find fault with the Council for deciding to consider and respond to Ms X’s complaints under both stages of its corporate complaints process.
The Council has explained the action it took in response to Ms X’s concerns about her child’s father leaving her child at her home without proper handover to another adult. The Council did not uphold Ms X’s complaints about the conduct of individual staff members involved with her child’s case. The Council’s complaint responses demonstrate it took Ms X’s concerns seriously and used its professional judgement to take appropriate and proportionate action, including discussing with the child’s father how his action of leaving his and Ms X’s child was unacceptable. We will not investigate this aspect of Ms X’s complaint because there is unlikely to be evidence of procedural fault that would lead us to question the merits of the decisions the Council made.
Ms X also raised concerns with us about the way in which court ordered care and contact arrangements for her child were not being followed and that the Council has ignored warning within court reports.
Care and contact arrangements for Ms X’s child have been made by the courts. Any concerns Ms X has about these arrangements, including whether they are being followed or wanting to modify arrangements, are matters only the court can consider. We have no power to intervene or make decisions in place of the court. Because of this, we cannot investigate this aspect of Ms X’s complaint.
Final decision
We will not investigate Ms X’s complaint because there is not enough evidence of fault by the Council to justify our involvement.
Investigator's decision on behalf of the Ombudsman