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 provided a court with an inaccurate report and has 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.
5. I considered the Ombudsman’s Assessment Code.

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My assessment

6. Mr X says the Council provided the Court with an inaccurate Children Act section seven report. He complained to the Council. It replied at stage one of its Children Act statutory complaints’ procedure. Mr X says it could not make a finding on three out of four of his complaints. He 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

7. We cannot investigate Mr X’s complaint about the court ordered report’s delay or the officer’s actions in compiling it.
8. 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. The Council can refuse to investigate at stage two of the statutory procedure when there are concurrent court proceedings.

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Final decision

9. 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