Summary: We will not investigate this complaint about the Council’s handling of a safeguarding referral. There is not enough evidence the Council’s actions had any effect separately from court action Ms X had already begun which we cannot investigate. We would not be able to add anything more to the outcome and the matters complained about were or could have been considered in court. The Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO) is better placed to consider complaints about information handling.

The complaint

1. Ms X says the Council initially considered her children should not live with their father but changed its view and wrote a biased and false report recommending the children should stay with him. She complains when she asked the Council why it had changed its view, it failed to provide a satisfactory response.
2. Ms X also says the Council failed to respond to her reasonable requests for information and sent her a document in error which the Council then asked her to delete.
3. Ms X has said the Council has failed to satisfactorily respond to her complaint, and says its actions have caused her and her family significant distress and anxiety for over a year from their effect on her private court proceedings and failure to take steps to protect her children.

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The Ombudsman’s role and powers

4. The Ombudsman investigates complaints about ‘maladministration’ and ‘service failure’, which we call ‘fault’. We must also consider whether any fault has had an adverse impact on the person making the complaint, which we call ‘injustice’. We provide a free service but must use public money carefully. We do not start or may decide not to continue with an investigation if we decide:

• further investigation would not lead to a different outcome, or
• we cannot achieve the outcome someone wants, or
• there is another body better placed to consider all or part of the complaint.

(Local Government Act 1974, section 24A (6))

5. 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)
6. The Information Commissioner's Office (ICO) considers complaints about freedom of information. Its decision notices may be appealed to the First Tier Tribunal (Information Rights). So where we receive complaints about freedom of information, we normally consider it reasonable to expect the person to refer the matter to the Information Commissioner.
7. 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)

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How I considered this complaint

8. I considered information provided by the Ms X and the Council.
9. I considered the Ombudsman’s Assessment Code.

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My assessment

10. Ms X began private court proceedings in early 2020, before the events complained of. She later regained custody of the children and has been able to move back to the family home.
11. The Court would have considered information in the Council’s assessment reports during the proceedings. The Ombudsman cannot consider issues that were or could have been raised in a court of law, nor any council action related to court action.
12. The Council did not take separate action towards Ms X or her children other than to convene a Child Protection Conference. Any result of that is not part of this complaint. We cannot therefore say the Council’s assessment of her family resulted in any separate injustice we could investigate.
13. If Ms X would like to know why the Council decided to change its initial view in the Section 17 assessment report, she can make a Subject Access Request . This would enable her to see all the information the Council holds about her and her children.
14. If the Council fails to provide this information, Ms X can make a complaint to the ICO which handles complaints about freedom of information and data protection.
15. Ms X would therefore also be able to complain to the ICO about the Council’s failure to respond to her request for information and for the report sent to her in error.
16. In cases where we are unable to investigate the matters in a complaint, we do not separately investigate the Council’s complaint handling process.

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Final decision

17. We will not investigate Ms X’s complaint because we cannot say the Council actions complained of caused her injustice separately to any matters in court at the time, nor can we achieve any more than the court action achieved. The ICO is better placed to consider complaints about information handling.

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Investigator's decision on behalf of the Ombudsman