Summary: We will not investigate this complaint about how the Council handled an adult social care complaint. We already considered the substantive matter under a previous case reference, and it is not proportionate to consider subsequent complaint-handling in isolation as there is nothing meaningful we could achieve.

The complaint

1. Mr X complained the Council did not properly deal with his complaint. He says it did not answer all parts of his complaint and has not told him if he is under safeguarding despite 15 months having passed since what he considered to be a malicious safeguarding referral. Mr X said this has caused him significant distress and he wanted the Council to provide answers.

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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:

• there is not enough evidence of fault to justify investigating, or
• further investigation would not lead to a different outcome, or
• there is no worthwhile outcome achievable by our investigation.

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

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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. We decided in June 2025 not to investigate a complaint from Mr X, as doing so would not lead to a different outcome. We explained the substantive matter had been resolved, as the Council had closed its safeguarding enquiry following a visit to Mr X’s property in December 2024. We considered the Council’s complaint responses up to April 2025 when coming to that decision.
6. I will not reconsider events up to April 2025 here, and it was open to Mr X to challenge our previous decision if he did not agree with it. I have focused only on subsequent correspondence between Mr X and the Council.
7. Mr X contacted the Council in September 2025 and said it never responded confirming whether it had closed the safeguarding enquiry. He also reiterated his concerns about events of 2024. The Council responded saying it would not correspond further about the matter given both it, and the Ombudsman, had already considered and responded to Mr X’s complaint.
8. It is not a good use of public resources to investigate complaint-handling in isolation when we are not investigating the substantive matter. However, for the avoidance of doubt, there is insufficient evidence of fault by the Council in its communications with Mr X in September 2025. It had already responded to Mr X’s complaint in April 2025, and we issued a decision on the matter in June 2025 which included consideration of complaint-handling. The Council was entitled to decide it would therefore not correspond further with Mr X about the same events.
9. We made clear in our previous decision statement the Council had closed its safeguarding enquiry after its visit to Mr X in December 2024. There is nothing meaningful we could achieve by further investigating the Council’s response of September 2025 in isolation.

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Final decision

10. We will not investigate Mr X’s complaint because we already considered the substantive matter under a previous case reference, and it is not proportionate to consider subsequent complaint-handling in isolation as there is nothing meaningful we could achieve.

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Investigator's decision on behalf of the Ombudsman