Summary: We will not investigate this complaint about matters in the Council’s records about the Council’s dealings with Ms X. An investigation would be unlikely to be able to reach a clear enough view or achieve anything meaningful.

The complaint

1. Ms X complains about problems with the Council’s records and about the Council’s related dealings with her concerning her social care needs.

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The Ombudsman’s role and powers

2. The Ombudsman investigates 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 may decide not to continue with an investigation if we decide: any injustice is not significant enough to justify our involvement, or further investigation would not lead to a different outcome, or we cannot achieve the outcome someone wants, or there is another body better placed to consider this complaint. (Local Government Act 1974, section 24A(6))
3. We normally expect someone to refer the matter to the Information Commissioner if they have a complaint about data protection. However, we may decide to investigate if we think there are good reasons. (Local Government Act 1974, section 24A(6), as amended)

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How I considered this complaint

4. I considered information provided by the complainant and copy complaint correspondence from the Council.
5. I considered the Ombudsman’s Assessment Code.

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My assessment

6. In 2021 Ms X got copies of some of the Council’s records about her. She argues the records show various breaches of her personal data, including inaccuracy and sharing information without her knowledge and permission. Ms X is also dissatisfied the Council has not told her who sent data about her from the Council’s adult social care section to the children’s services section. That is also essentially a complaint that the Council has not provided data Ms X seeks.
7. Ms X says she has contacted the Information Commissioner about the personal data matters. That seems correct. We are unlikely to be able to add anything significant. So we do not propose to pursue this point.
8. Ms X also says the Council’s records raise questions and concerns for her about the service the Council offered or failed to offer her at various points of her contact with it over the years since 2011. In particular, she is concerned the Council missed opportunities to offer her an assessment of her social care needs.
9. Ms X previously complained to us in 2019. Our decision on that complaint noted the Council had admitted and apologised for some faults in its dealings with Ms X (those included mishandling situations when the Council should have considered offering Ms X an assessment). Ms X’s previous complaint argued there was more fault than the Council had admitted. We decided we would not be able to establish what injustice any other alleged faults might have caused Ms X. So we did not investigate that complaint.
10. Ms X now has more information than in 2019 because has seen her files. However, the substantive issues are the same: Ms X believes the Council was at fault on various occasions for what it did about offering services; in particular, for not offering her an assessment. Our previous decision dealt with that and said we would not be able to reach a clear enough view on whether such points caused Ms X a significant enough injustice to warrant investigation. That remains the case. I note Ms X has now seen some Council records about her dating back to 2011. However, it is unlikely we could reach a clear enough view about the extent of any fault, or any injustice that might have resulted from such fault, as that would depend not just on what the records show, but on Ms X’s circumstances relative to the eligibility criteria for Council services at the relevant times. Nor do I consider we could achieve any meaningful remedy now for such matters.
11. Ms X also wants explanations for why certain things happened, or did not happen, at particular times over the years. I do not consider any investigation could expect to reach a clear enough view, on balance, about the reasons for what the Council did, let alone for what it did not do, dating back so many years. Nor is it the Ombudsman’s role to try to answer every question someone might have.
12. I understand Ms X might still like an assessment of her social care needs. It is open to her to ask the Council for that. I note Ms X states she feels unable to seek an assessment until she has answers to her questions. However, that is Ms X’s decision. It does not mean we should investigate her complaint.

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Final decision

13. We will not investigate Ms X’s complaint because it is unlikely any investigation now could reach a clear enough view about the extent of any fault or resulting injustice. Nor could we achieve a meaningful remedy now. For these reasons, I consider investigating the complaint would be a disproportionate use of time and public money.

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Investigator's decision on behalf of the Ombudsman