Derbyshire County Council (21 016 249)
Category : Children's care services > Child protection
Decision : Closed after initial enquiries
Decision date : 10 Mar 2022
The Ombudsman's final decision:
Summary: We will not investigate Mr X’s complaint about events which happened 24 years ago. There are no good reasons the late complaint rule should not apply.
The complaint
- The complainant, whom I shall call Mr X, complains about children services actions 24 years ago.
The Ombudsman’s role and powers
- We cannot investigate late complaints unless we decide there are good reasons. Late complaints are when someone takes more than 12 months to complain to us about something a council has done. (Local Government Act 1974, sections 26B and 34D, as amended)
How I considered this complaint
- I considered information provided by Mr X and the Council.
- I considered the Ombudsman’s Assessment Code.
- I considered Mr X’s comments on a draft version of this decision.
My assessment
- Mr X says the Council’s children services team accused him of not safeguarding his child following an incident involving his child and his father. Mr X says he wants an explanation of where the accusations come from.
- We should not dis-apply the requirements of the 12 month rule in historic cases unless we have very clear reasons for doing so that satisfy the following two tests:
- We are confident there is a realistic prospect of reaching a sound, fair, and meaningful decision, and
- We are satisfied that Mr X could not reasonably be expected to have complained sooner.
- I am not satisfied either test has been passed for the following reasons:
- As 24 years have passed we are less likely to be able to gather enough evidence to reach a sound judgement. Even if some evidence is available, we will have difficulties with reliability, and being able to see a full picture.
- There will be great difficulty in proving causality given the events are 24 years ago.
- Mr X has provided no reasons it has taken him until now to complain to us.
Final decision
- We will not investigate this complaint. This is because there are no good reasons the late complaint rule should not apply.
Investigator's decision on behalf of the Ombudsman