Summary: The Ombudsman cannot and will not investigate Mr X’s complaint about the way the Council and a school responded to his allegations about his child’s care. We cannot investigate the School’s action. We cannot investigate the Council’s response as the Courts considered the child’s care.

The complaint

1. The complainant, whom I shall call Mr X, says the Council failed to respond properly to his complaint about his child’s care.

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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 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)
4. We cannot investigate complaints about what happens in schools. (Local Government Act 1974, Schedule 5, paragraph 5(b), as amended)
5. We have the power to start or discontinue an investigation into a complaint within our jurisdiction. We may decide not to start or continue with an investigation if we think the issues could reasonably be, or have been, raised within a court of law. (Local Government Act 1974, sections 24A(6) and 34B(8), as amended)
6. The Courts have said that we cannot investigate a complaint about any action by a council, concerning a matter which is itself out of our jurisdiction. (R (on the application of M) v Commissioner for Local Administration [2006] EHWCC 2847 (Admin))

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How I considered this complaint

7. I considered the information Mr X provided with his complaint and the Council’s reply to him which it provided. I considered Mr X’s comments on a draft version of this decision.

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What I found

Background summary

8. Mr X says the Council has not properly investigated a referral he made to it about the care of his child. He says the child’s school also failed to investigate his concerns.
9. The Court considered the child’s care arrangements, after he made the allegations about the child’s care.
10. The Council say it has not been possible to investigate Mr X’s complaint.

Analysis

11. We cannot investigate the School’s actions.
12. A Court when considering the care arrangements for a child, must consider the overall welfare of a child and not just the application before it. If it considers there is a risk the child is coming to harm, as Mr X alleges, the Court can order the Council to carry out a child protection investigation. It is reasonable to expect Mr X to have told the Court of his concerns. We cannot investigate issues which a Court has considered and decided on.
13. Mr X says the Court did not fully explore his allegations. We cannot investigate a child safeguarding allegation a Court chooses not to fully explore. It had the duty to consider all the welfare circumstances of the child.
14. It is not a good use of public resources to investigate complaints about complaint procedures, if we are unable to deal with the substantive issue.

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Final decision

15. The Ombudsman will not and cannot investigate this complaint. This is because a Court considered the child’s care.

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Investigator's decision on behalf of the Ombudsman