Summary: The Ombudsman cannot investigate Ms X’s complaint about why her child became a looked after child. The Court decided this. Her other complaints have either been previously considered and decided or should not be investigated because of the late complaint rule.

The complaint

1. The complainant, whom I shall call Ms X, complains at the way her child became a looked after child.

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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 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)

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How I considered this complaint

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

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What I found

5. Ms X says the Council failed to properly assess her child, Y, before it started caring for them. She says the Council got a Court order so it could care for Y. Ms X says this was wrong. She also disagrees with the contact she had with Y while the Council looked after them.
6. We previously considered and decided a complaint from Ms X in 2018 about the contact she had with Y. We cannot investigate a new complaint covering this same issue.
7. We cannot investigate whether Y should have been cared for by the Council. The Court decided this and we cannot investigate issues a Court decided.
8. Any Council assessment before Y became looked after is now many years old. We should not use our discretion to investigate this issue which is over 12 months old because
1. the assessments have been superseded by the Court proceedings.
2. Ms X should have raised this complaint with us when she made her previous complaint in 2018.

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Final decision

9. The Ombudsman will not and cannot investigate this complaint. This is because we cannot investigate issues a Court decided, or issues we have previously considered and decided.

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Investigator's decision on behalf of the Ombudsman