Summary: The Ombudsman will not investigate Mrs X’s complaint about a children services report on her family produced in 2018. A second complaint will remedy part of her injustice and the Information Commissioner’s Office is better placed.

The complaint

1. The complainant, whom I shall call Mrs X, says a Council social worker produced an inaccurate report and acted unprofessionally.

Back to top

The Ombudsman’s role and powers

2. 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)
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)
4. We normally expect someone to refer the matter to the Information Commissioner if they have a complaint about data protection. However, we may decide to investigate if we think there are good reasons. (Local Government Act 1974, section 24A(6), as amended)

Back to top

How I considered this complaint

5. I considered the information Mrs X provided with her complaint which included the Council’s reply. I considered Mrs X’s comments on a draft version of this decision.

Back to top

What I found

Background

6. Mrs X says in July 2018 a Council social worker produced a children and family assessment report about her family, its needs and circumstances. She says this report is inaccurate.
7. Mrs X says in 2019 the Council produced another report which uses the first report. She has complained separately about this second report.
8. Mrs X says the social worker who prepared the first report was disrespectful to her family and was late for appointments.
9. The Council has refused to investigate Mrs X’s complaint about the first report as it says the complaint is now too old. Mrs X complained to the Council about it in December 2019. She says she was under immense pressure and had been too busy supporting her family to complain before. She says she did not realise the extent of the first report until she received the second report.

Analysis

10. Our role is to investigate the actions of the Council as a corporate body, not to hold a single officer accountable. If Mrs X has concerns about the professionalism or integrity of an individual social worker, it is reasonable to expect her to report her concerns to their professional body, Social Work England.
11. Mrs X’s second complaint about the second report will inevitably cover the effect of the errors in the first report being used in the second report.
12. Parliament set up the Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO) to consider data protection breaches. Mrs X says the first report has inaccurate information about her and har family. This can be a data protection breach. It is reasonable to expect Mrs X to complain to the ICO, and it is better placed to do so, particularly given there are complex exemptions for child protection issues.

Back to top

Final decision

13. The Ombudsman will not investigate Mrs X’s complaint. This is because Mrs X’s complaint about the second report will inevitably cover the effects of errors in the first report and the ICO is better placed to look at inaccurate records.

Back to top

Investigator's decision on behalf of the Ombudsman