Summary: The Ombudsman will not investigate this complaint about a safeguarding investigation and the Council’s actions relating to it. This is because the complaint is made late and there are no good reasons to consider it now. The additional matters raised by the complainant are not within the Ombudsman’s jurisdiction or not for him to consider.

The complaint

1. The complainant, who I refer to here as Mr F, says that:
• A safeguarding investigation conducted by the Council into the care for Mr F’s mother in law was flawed;
• A review of the safeguarding investigation was equally flawed;
• The Council refused to follow up Mr F’s concerns regarding the review;
• It disclosed personal data relating to Mr F and his family, without their consent, during the review; and
• It has refused to follow up Mr F’s further concerns regarding its response to allegations regarding officer conduct, the outcome of a peer review, and broader issues relating to the general activities of the Council.

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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 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)
4. We cannot investigate a complaint if it is about a personnel issue. (Local Government Act 1974, Schedule 5/5a, paragraph 4, as amended)
5. We investigate complaints about ‘maladministration’ and ‘service failure’. In this statement, I have used the word ‘fault’ to refer to these. We must also consider whether any fault has had an adverse impact on the person making the complaint. I refer to this as ‘injustice’. We provide a free service, but must use public money carefully. We may decide not to start or continue with an investigation if we believe:

• the alleged fault has not caused injustice to the person who complained, or
• there is another body better placed to consider this complaint. (Local Government Act 1974, section 24A(6), as amended)

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How I considered this complaint

6. I considered the information provided by Mr F and by the Council. I have also sent Mr F an initial view for his comments.

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What I found

7. Between 2009 and 2017 Mr and Mrs F raised concerns and made safeguarding referrals regarding the care for Mrs F’s mother, P. The care was provided by Mrs F’s father, Q, but Mr and Mrs F felt that he was unable to provide appropriately for his wife. They also felt that the Council did not provide an adequate care package or support for the couple.
8. Mr F says that during this period Mrs F’s attempts to improve the care for her mother were obstructed by her father. Mr and Mrs F were dissatisfied with the Council’s responses to their concerns and its refusal to carry out a full safeguarding investigation.
9. Following and escalation of their concerns in early 2017, Mr and Mrs F took P into their care, and she eventually entered residential care.
10. In August 2018 Mr F presented a report to the Council detailing his allegations regarding what he and Mrs F regarded as the Council’s failure to safeguard P. He requested an investigation into the matter.
11. A multi -agency meeting was then held, which decided that the criteria were not met for a full review of the safeguarding issues in this case.
12. Mr F was unhappy about the way the meting was convened and held, as well as its decision and his exclusion from it.
13. The Council, however, refused to continue to respond to Mr F’s representations as it said that the safeguarding process was concluded, and that if he wished to follow up the matter further, it would need to be via the formal complaints process.
14. Mr F has now brought the complaint to the Ombudsman, but we will not investigate it. This is because we cannot investigate complaints about matters known to the complainant more than 12 months previously unless there are good reasons to do so. In this case, I have seen no good reasons to exercise the Ombudsman’s discretion.
15. In making this decision I have also taken into account the restriction on the LGSCO to consider complaints only after the Council has had an opportunity to respond to them. Mr F has not made a complaint through the Council’s complaints process, although he was invited to do so.
16. Additionally, although Mr F says that he has more recent communications from the Council, which he feels bring the matter into the last 12 months, these communications are not complaint responses, do not add anything to the responses of summer 2018, and do not alter the fact that he was aware of the safeguarding issues and the Council’s refusal to instigate a full review more than 12 months before he approached the LGSCO.
17. Mr F has also complained to the Ombudsman about some additional issues relating to the past 12 months, but we are not able investigate them.
18. Mr F says the Council disclosed data regarding him and his family without their consent. We will not investigate however, as such issues need to be raised to the Information Commissioner’s Office, which is the body set up to consider complaints about data breaches..
19. He also complains that Council has not dealt properly with allegations regarding the conduct of Council officers. However, the LGSCO does not look at complaints about individuals, but about the Council as a corporate body. Officer conduct has been considered through a peer review and by the HCPC, and although Mr F remains dissatisfied with the outcomes of these, they are not within our jurisdiction.
20. Mr F further seeks to raise wider concerns regarding the activities and competence of the Council, citing other investigations and findings. This is not an area that we can consider. The role of the LGSCO is to look at fault causing individual personal injustice, rather than to carry out a general scrutiny of the Council’s overall performance.

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Final decision

21. I will not investigate this complaint. The complaint is made late and there are no good reasons to exercise the Ombudsman’s discretion to investigate it now. Additionally the other matters raised are not for the Ombudsman to consider.

Investigator’s final decision on behalf of the Ombudsman

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Investigator's decision on behalf of the Ombudsman