Summary: We will not investigate this complaint about the Council failing to keep accurate records and of having an inappropriate comment in Mr X’s records. This is because there is not enough evidence of fault and significant injustice to justify an investigation.

The complaint

1. Mr X complains the Council has not kept records of interactions with him and others involved in his social care for a significant length of time. He also complains there is an inappropriate comment about his character in his records.

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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:

• there is not enough evidence of fault to justify investigating, or
• any injustice is not significant enough to justify our involvement, or
• there is another body better placed to consider this complaint,

(Local Government Act 1974, section 24A(6))

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How I considered this complaint

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

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My assessment

5. Mr X receives support from the Council’s adult social services. Mr X said the Council failed to keep accurate records of his interactions with the service around March 2020 until December 2020. He says he only found this out recently due to reading his records. Mr X said the alleged fault caused him serious harm and contributed to his care breaking down.
6. While Mr X says the alleged fault caused him an injustice, it remains the case Mr X was not aware of the alleged fault until he read his case notes. This suggests Mr X cannot have been caused any significant injustice, because if he was, Mr X would have realised there was an issue much sooner than he did. Therefore, the claimed injustice is not significant enough to justify an investigation.
7. Mr X said the inappropriate comment about his character is related to an email between two Council officers. Mr X feels the information should not be in his records because it is an opinion of the officer.
8. Even if we were to investigate this, it is unlikely we would find fault. This is because we would expect the Council to keep accurate records of their actions and correspondence relating to any individual. If the email related to Mr X, it would be appropriate for this information to be saved to his records. Therefore, there is not enough evidence of fault to justify an investigation.
9. If Mr X wants the Council to delete information contained in his records, it is more appropriate for him to bring this complaint to the Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO).

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Final decision

10. We will not investigate Mr X’s complaint because there is not enough evidence of fault and significant injustice to justify an investigation.

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Investigator's decision on behalf of the Ombudsman