Summary: The Ombudsman cannot investigate Mr X’s complaint about the preparation and content of a report order by a Court. The law prevents us from investigating legal proceedings.

The complaint

1. The complainant, whom I shall call Mr X, complains about a social worker’s professionalism and the content of a report they gave a Court.

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The Ombudsman’s role and powers

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)
3. We investigate complaints about ‘maladministration’ and ‘service failure’. In this statement, I have used the word 'fault' to refer to these. We must also consider whether any fault has had an adverse impact on the person making the complaint. I refer to this as ‘injustice’. We provide a free service, but must use public money carefully. We may decide not to start or continue with an investigation if we believe there is another body better placed to consider this complaint. (Local Government Act 1974, section 24A(6), as amended)

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How I considered this complaint

4. I considered the information Mr X provided with his complaint. Mr X had the opportunity to comment on a draft version of this decision.

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What I found

5. Mr X says his family became involved in private law proceedings about the care arrangements for his children. As part of those proceedings the Court ordered the Council provide it with a report on whether the children were at risk of suffering from significant harm. This is a section 37 Children Act 1989 report.
6. Mr X says the social worker prepared and wrote a poor report. He says it was biased, stated opinion not based on any facts, and they barely viewed any contact between him and the children. He says the Judge criticised the report.
7. We cannot investigate a section 37 report’s preparation or content.
8. It would be difficult to investigate the social worker’s actions or manner separately from the section 37 report. Our role is to investigate the actions of the Council as a corporate body, not to hold a single officer accountable. If Mr X has concerns about the professionalism or integrity of an individual social worker, it is reasonable to expect him to report his concerns to their professional body, Social Work England.

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Final decision

9. The Ombudsman cannot investigate this complaint. This is because we cannot investigate the preparation and content of reports ordered by a Court.

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Investigator's decision on behalf of the Ombudsman