Lancashire County Council

The Ombudsman's final decision

Summary: We will not investigate this complaint about the Council’s contact with Mr X, relating to child protection procedures. There are other bodies better placed to consider his complaint and there is otherwise no worthwhile outcome achievable by us investigating.

The complaint

Mr X said the Council failed to properly communicate with him during child protection proceedings. He said it did not engage with him meaningfully, mischaracterised his co-operation and failed to properly organise multi agency meetings.

Mr X said this has caused him distress and wants the Council to correct its records and allocate a different Social Worker to his children’s case.

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 there is another body better placed to consider this complaint, or there is no worthwhile outcome achievable by our investigation.

(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 I considered the Ombudsman’s Assessment Code.

My assessment

Mr X says the Council has poorly managed his children’s case, including how it communicated with him, organised meetings and arranged family contact. He wants another Social Worker allocated to his family.

Mr X complains about matters, which are about how a Social Worker is managing contact, how they organise professional meetings and a lack of empathy and tact. Our role is to investigate complaints where there is evidence of a systemic failure in the Council fulfilling its statutory duties.

I am not satisfied that Mr X’s complaint amounts to this and see his complaints being related to Social Work Professional Practice. Accordingly Social Work England are the more appropriate body to investigate these types of complaints. We cannot direct the Council to take disciplinary action against individuals.

Additionally, Mr X wants the Council to rectify its records about him and the Information Commissioner (IC) has more extensive powers than we do, in relation to rectification of personal information an organisation holds about a person. Therefore, I see the IC as a more appropriate body to address any complaints about those matters. We could not direct the Council to alter any records it has.

Additionally, we cannot direct the Council to change Mr X’s family’s Social Worker to someone else, and so there is no worthwhile outcome achievable.

Mr X said the Council was wrong not to have investigated his complaint about this matter. I will not investigate this part of his complaint. It is not a good use of public resources to investigate complaints about complaint procedures, if we decide we will not deal with the main issue.

Final decision

We will not investigate Mr X’s complaint because there are other bodies better placed to consider it and there is no worthwhile outcome achievable by us investigating.

Investigator's decision on behalf of the Ombudsman