Summary: We will not investigate this complaint that the Council was at fault in its involvement with the complainant’s daughter. This is because investigation would not lead to a different outcome.

The complaint

1. The complainant, who I will refer to as Ms X, complains that the Council was at fault in its involvement with her daughter and has failed to respond appropriately to her subsequent complaint.

Back to top

The Ombudsman’s role and powers

2. 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:

• we could not add to any previous investigation by the organisation, or
• further investigation would not lead to a different outcome, or

(Local Government Act 1974, section 24A(6), as amended, section 34(B))

Back to top

How I considered this complaint

3. I considered information provided by the complainant.
4. I considered the Ombudsman’s Assessment Code.

Back to top

My assessment

5. Ms X’s daughter was the subject of a child and family assessment. Ms X complains that the assessment was flawed, in that it contained significant errors. She says that, on the Council’s advice, her daughter went to live with her father. She says the Council closed the case and failed to inform the authority into which her daughter moved. She regards the Council’s actions as amounting to poor and unsafe social work practice, causing unnecessary distress and placing her daughter at risk of harm.
6. The Council substantially upheld Ms X’s subsequent complaint. It accepted that the child and family assessment was flawed and that the case should not have been closed without the other authority being informed. If offered to include an assessment incorporating Ms X’s amendments on its files and has offered her a symbolic payment in recognition of the fault and the impact it had.
7. Ms X does not regard the Council’s complaint response as adequate. She also says it contains errors.
8. The question for the Ombudsman is whether investigation is likely to lead to a substantially different outcome to what the Council has already offered. I do not find that this is the case. Where there are inaccuracies in assessments, the Ombudsman would normally expect a record of a complainant’s dissenting views to be placed on the relevant file. The Council has already offered to do so. The symbolic payment is has offered is reasonable in the circumstances of the case. Investigation would not add substantially to the outcome of the Council’s complaints procedure and is not therefore warranted.

Back to top

Final decision

9. We will not investigate Ms X’s complaint because investigation would not lead to a different outcome.

Back to top

Investigator's decision on behalf of the Ombudsman