Summary: We will not investigate this complaint about the complaints procedure the Council is using as investigation is unlikely to lead to any worthwhile outcome.

The complaint

1. Mr X said the Council failed to use its corporate complaints procedure properly and it should have operated a three-stage procedure.

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The Ombudsman’s role and powers

2. 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:

• there is not enough evidence of fault to justify investigating, or
• we could not add to any previous investigation by the organisation, or
• further investigation would not lead to a different outcome, or
• we cannot achieve the outcome someone wants.

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

3. We cannot investigate complaints about what happens in schools. (Local Government Act 1974, Schedule 5, paragraph 5(b), 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))

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How I considered this complaint

5. I considered information provided by the complainant.
6. I considered the Ombudsman’s Assessment Code.

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My assessment

7. The complaint Mr X has made to us about the Council’s complaint handling is jurisdictionally complex.
8. The documents Mr X sent in show the origin of the complaint is a matter involving a teacher in a school and Mr X’s child wishing to go to the toilet.
9. We cannot investigate matters that concern the internal management of a school, or the Council’s role in advising a school about a complaint about those matters, because the substantive matters are outside our jurisdiction. So, insofar as this might be a dispute about whether a child should be allowed to use the toilet during a lesson, it is outside our jurisdiction. That is also true of any complaint about that made against the school, or against the Council in advising the school, or about the Council’s handling of that complaint.
10. However, the safeguarding role of the Local Authority Designated Officer (LADO) is within our jurisdiction. Events that happen within a school can be safeguarding matters. So, insofar as the actions of a teacher are reported to the LADO, the LADO’s consideration of those matters is a matter we can consider.
11. Here, the LADO’s view was stated to be that what happened within the school did not amount to a safeguarding incident. Given the circumstances that commonly occur in schools involving children asking to go to the toilet, that is likely to be a matter of professional judgement by the LADO that we could not criticise. Essentially, we would have to decide whether a child being refused permission to go to the toilet was a safeguarding issue. We cannot do that.
12. Mr X’s complaint about the way the Council dealt with his complaint about matters stemming from the incident in school is therefore not one where investigation by us of the Council’s application of its complaints procedure would be likely to be fruitful.

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Final decision

13. We will not investigate Mr X’s complaint because investigation of the Council’s complaint handling is unlikely to lead to any worthwhile outcome.

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Investigator's decision on behalf of the Ombudsman