Summary: We will not investigate Miss B’s complaint that the Council made false allegations about her, leading to the removal of her daughter from her care. This is because the complaint is late and there are no grounds to consider it now.

The complaint

1. The complainant, who I will refer to as Miss B, complains that the Council made false allegations about her, leading to the removal of her daughter from her care.

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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 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. 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))
5. 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 we cannot achieve the outcome someone wants. (Local Government Act 1974, section 24A(6), as amended)

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How I considered this complaint

6. I have considered what Miss B has said in support of her complaint and the complaint correspondence provided by the Council. I have also considered Miss B’s response to my draft decision and the documents she has provided.

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What I found

7. Miss B says her daughter was removed from her care at birth and she missed the first weeks of her daughter’s life. Miss B says the decision to remove her daughter resulted from false allegations that she had harmed her older child contained in statements made to the Court by social workers.
8. The Ombudsman will not investigate Miss B’s complaint because it is late. Late complaints are where someone takes more than 12 months to complain to us about something a Council has done. Miss B says the reports about which she complains were produced in 2018. Her complaint about them is therefore late.
9. The Ombudsman has the discretion to consider late complaints where it is appropriate to do so. That is not the case here. This is because the allegations were contained in witness statements made to the Court when the Council applied for an Emergency Protection Order. The law says we cannot investigate the content or production of statements a council makes to a court. This aspect of Miss B’s complaint falls outside our jurisdiction and we could not have investigated it, even if it had been brought to our attention within 12 months.
10. It is also the case that we cannot achieve what Miss B wants. We would not normally ask a Council to change the content of its case files. The most we would seek to achieve in these circumstances is that the Council agree to place a record of Miss B’s dissenting views on its file. As Miss B has made a complaint to the Council a record of her views already forms part of the case file. There is nothing further for the Ombudsman to achieve.
11. If Miss B wants false information on the Council’s files corrected or removed it is open to her to pursue her right to rectification under data protection law. The Information Commissioner is better placed than the Ombudsman to consider such matters.

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Final decision

12. We will not investigate this complaint. This is because the complaint is late and there are no grounds for us to consider it now.

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Investigator's decision on behalf of the Ombudsman