Summary: We will not investigate this complaint about the Council’s involvement with Ms X, including how it safeguarded her and the subsequent care proceedings. This is because the complaint is late and there are not sufficient good reasons to exercise discretion to consider it now.

The complaint

1. Ms X said the Council failed to properly safeguard her from abuse by her former partner, including how it explained to her what was going on, how it considered her own vulnerabilities, and did not follow up on warning signs she was at risk of coercive control.
2. Ms X said this has left her with lasting pain and distress and meant she had her children removed from her care.

Back to top

The Ombudsman’s role and powers

3. The Local Government Act 1974 sets out our powers but also imposes restrictions on what we can investigate.
4. 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)
5. We will not usually investigate complaint handling if we are not investigating the rest of the complaint. This is because there is not usually enough injustice to justify us doing so. We collect information about particularly poor complaint handling practice and report this back to organisations. (Local Government Act 1974, section 24A(6), section 34B(8))
6. 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 we cannot achieve the outcome someone wants, or there is no worthwhile outcome achievable by our investigation. (Local Government Act 1974, section 24A(6), section 34(B))

Back to top

How I considered this complaint

7. I considered information provided by the complainant and I considered the Ombudsman’s Assessment Code.

Back to top

My assessment

8. Ms X said she recently identified that a multi-disciplinary organisation that was involved with her in 2013-2014, is commissioned jointly with another organisation and the Council. She complained to us in September 2026, about how she was supported and left exposed to harm by the Council.
9. I will not investigate Ms X’s complaint. On balance, it is likely she would have been aware that the Council was involved in providing her with support and will have had a key role in care proceedings, given the nature of the matters she has complained about.
10. A complaint about those actions is therefore late, because the time for making complaints to us, is within 12 months of the matter a person wants to complain about.
11. I acknowledge the reasons Ms X has provided to us, for why she did not complain about them sooner, in particular her personal circumstances. However, I am not satisfied these are sufficient good reasons to set aside the expectation in law, that we do not investigate late complaints.
12. In any case there is no worthwhile outcome we can achieve even if the complaint was not late and so I would not investigate. The matters Ms X complained about occurred over 10 years ago and so we could not have any meaningful impact on the Council’s current practices and nor can we make a compensation award for the harm Ms X describes.

Back to top

Final decision

13. We will not investigate Ms X’s complaint because it is late and there are not sufficient good reasons to exercise discretion to investigate it now.

Back to top

Investigator's decision on behalf of the Ombudsman