Summary: We will not investigate Mr X’s complaint about the Council refusing to escalate his complaint to stage two of the Children Act complaints’ procedure. It is unlikely we would find he has been caused any significant injustice.

The complaint

1. The complainant, whom I shall call Mr X, says the Council delayed in issuing a report, failed to return his calls and refused to escalate his complaint.

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The Ombudsman’s role and powers

2. 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)
3. 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 do not start an investigation if we decide the tests set out in our Assessment Code are not met. (Local Government Act 1974, section 24A(6), as amended)

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How I considered this complaint

4. I considered information provided by Mr X which included the Council’s replies to him.
5. I considered the Ombudsman’s Assessment Code.

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My assessment

6. Mr X says the Court ordered the Council to issue a Children Act section seven report by a certain date. He says the Council failed to meet it. He complained to the Council. It replied at stage one of its Children Act statutory complaints’ procedure. It accepted fault and apologised.
7. Mr X also complained the officer, in charge of writing the report, had not returned his calls. The Council in its reply, explained why this had happened.
8. Mr X was not happy with the Council’s reply and asked the Council escalate it to stage two. The Council refused. It said it could choose to use its corporate procedure and it did not believe a stage two was justified. It said the outcome would be the same. It mentioned the court proceedings.

Analysis

9. We cannot investigate Mr X’s complaint about the court ordered report’s delay or the officer’s actions in compiling it.
10. We usually expect Council’s to carry on using the statutory complaints’ procedure when it has confirmed at stage one that is the procedure it is using. We usually consider it fault to swap to the corporate procedure. However, it is unlikely it could have made a difference to the situation. The Council is allowed to refuse to investigate at stage two of the statutory procedure if there are concurrent court proceedings.

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Final decision

11. We will not investigate Mr X’s complaint because we are unlikely to find that Mr X has been caused any significant injustice by any Council fault in the way the Council handled his complaint.

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Investigator's decision on behalf of the Ombudsman