Surrey County Council (18 019 662)

Category : Children's care services > Child protection

Decision : Closed after initial enquiries

Decision date : 24 May 2019

The Ombudsman's final decision:

Summary: The Ombudsman cannot investigate this complaint about the complainants’ children being taken into care. This is because the decisions were made by a court, and are therefore out of the Ombudsman’s jurisdiction.

The complaint

  1. The complainants, who I refer to here as Mr and Mrs C, say that their children have been unfairly taken into care due to the actions of the Council’s social services.

Back to top

The Ombudsman’s role and powers

  1. The Local Government Act 1974 sets out our powers but also imposes restrictions on what we can investigate.
  2. We cannot investigate a complaint about the start of court action or what happened in court. (Local Government Act 1974, Schedule 5/5A, paragraph 1/3, as amended)

Back to top

How I considered this complaint

  1. I considered the information provided by Mr and Mrs C and by the Council. I have also sent Mr and Mrs C an initial view for their comments.

Back to top

What I found

  1. Mr and Mrs C complain that the Council’s social services has acted unfairly toward them over the past five years. They say that they are now unable to see their children apart from one of them, under supervision.
  2. Mr and Mrs C feel that the decision to take their youngest child into care was particularly unfair. They say that he is unhappy and should be allowed to come back to them
  3. Although I can appreciate how upsetting the situation must be for Mr and Mrs C, we are unable to investigate the complaint. This is because the decisions regarding care and contact were made by a court and are out of the LGSCO’s jurisdiction. Any allegations about unfair treatment by social services needed to be raised in court for the judge to consider in making the court’s decisions.
  4. We are also unable to achieve Mr and Mrs C’s desired outcome of having their youngest child returned to their care, as only a court can make that decision.

Back to top

Final decision

  1. I am unable to investigate this complaint because the matters raised are out of jurisdiction due to court proceedings.

Investigator’s final decision on behalf of the Ombudsman

Back to top

Investigator's decision on behalf of the Ombudsman

Print this page

LGO logogram

Review your privacy settings

Required cookies

These cookies enable the website to function properly. You can only disable these by changing your browser preferences, but this will affect how the website performs.

View required cookies

Analytical cookies

Google Analytics cookies help us improve the performance of the website by understanding how visitors use the site.
We recommend you set these 'ON'.

View analytical cookies

In using Google Analytics, we do not collect or store personal information that could identify you (for example your name or address). We do not allow Google to use or share our analytics data. Google has developed a tool to help you opt out of Google Analytics cookies.

Privacy settings