Summary: We will not investigate Ms X’s complaint about the Council’s decision to take safeguarding action. The Council has started care proceedings and the courts are involved. We cannot consider the complaint properly until after those proceedings have finished.

The complaint

1. Ms X complained about the Council’s decision to take safeguarding action after it received a referral. She said information provided at the Initial Child Protection Conference (ICPC) was incorrect; that included the Council incorrectly said there no evidence Ms X was a victim of domestic abuse. Ms X also said her child did not attend the conference. Ms X wants the Council to take her children off the child protection plan, delete the report it provided to the ICPC and apologise.

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The Ombudsman’s role and powers

2. The Local Government Act 1974 sets out our powers but also imposes restrictions on what we can investigate.
3. 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)
4. 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 not enough evidence of fault to justify investigating.

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

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How I considered this complaint

5. I considered information provided by the complainant and the Council.
6. I considered the Ombudsman’s Assessment Code.

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My assessment

7. The Council considered Ms X’s complaint at stage one of the statutory complaint’s procedure. It did not uphold it. Since then, the Council has started care proceedings. It has told Ms X it will not consider the complaint further until care proceedings have concluded. Ms X was unhappy with the Council’s decision and complained to us.
8. The guidance on the statutory complaints procedure allows the Council to use discretion to not investigate when there are concurrent court proceedings. Therefore, there is not enough evidence of fault in the Council’s decision to place Ms X’s complaint on hold to justify our involvement.
9. In addition, we cannot investigate the Council’s decision to begin care proceedings or what happened in court. There might be parts of Ms X’s complaint that are separable from court proceedings, but this would not be clear until court proceedings are complete.
10. Once proceedings have finished, Ms X can return to the Council with her complaint and resume the complaints procedure. Once that is complete, Ms X can return to the Ombudsman, and we can consider whether we can investigate any parts of the complaint.

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Final decision

11. We will not investigate Ms X’s complaint because there is not enough evidence of fault in the Council’s decision not to investigate to justify our involvement. We will not know what parts of the complaint we can consider until court proceedings have ended.

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Investigator's decision on behalf of the Ombudsman