Summary: We will not investigate this complaint about the Council’s handling of a safeguarding referral. This is because any injustice is not significant enough to justify our involvement.

The complaint

1. Ms Y complains about the Council’s handling of a safeguarding referral about her, and how the Council’s dealt with her complaint.
2. Ms Y says the issue has caused her distress, upset and worry.

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The Ombudsman’s role and powers

3. 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 any injustice is not significant enough to justify our involvement.(Local Government Act 1974, section 24A(6), as amended, section 34(B))
4. It is not a good use of public resources to investigate complaints about complaint procedures, if we cannot deal with the substantive issue.

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How I considered this complaint

5. I considered information provided by Ms Y.
6. I considered the Ombudsman’s Assessment Code.

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My assessment

7. Ms Y complained to the Council about a safeguarding referral that was made about her in 2024. Ms Y was not aware of the safeguarding referral until she did a subject access request on another matter in 2025.
8. Ms Y says the referral was based on false and inaccurate information.
9. Ms Y complained to the Council that the referral was done by a care agency upon the advice of a social worker. This was evidenced in the subject access request documents.
10. In its complaint response, the Council said the social worker did not advise the care agency to do a safeguarding referral, rather provided general advice about safeguarding and making referrals if the agency had concerns.
11. Our role is to consider complaints where the person bringing the complaint has suffered significant personal injustice as a direct result of the actions or inactions of the organisation. This means we will normally only investigate a complaint where the complainant has suffered a serious loss, harm or distress as a direct result of faults or failures. We will not normally investigate a complaint where the alleged loss of injustice is not a serious or significant matter.
12. We will not start an investigation into Ms Y’s complaint. While we recognise Ms Y's distress, the injustice arising from the matters complained about is not significant enough to justify our involvement. Therefore, we will not investigate.
13. Ms Y is unhappy with the Council’s handling of and response to her complaint. However, we will not look at a Council’s complaint response if we are not going to look at the matter which led to the original complaint.

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Final decision

14. We will not investigate Ms Y’s complaint because any injustice is not significant enough to warrant the Ombudsman’s involvement.

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Investigator's decision on behalf of the Ombudsman