Summary: We will not investigate this complaint about the Council’s actions in relation to Mr X’s child. We could not achieve the outcomes Mr X seeks. The Council has already accepted it was at fault and taken suitable action, and outstanding action requested by Mr X is an issue for the courts.

The complaint

1. Mr X complained the Council failed to safeguard his child. He says the matter has caused significant distress, and risk to his child. He wanted a thorough investigation and for the Council to acknowledge its shortcomings in his child’s case. He also wanted it to take the case back to the courts with revised representations, and to prevent his child having further contact with their abuser.

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The Ombudsman’s role and powers

2. The Local Government Act 1974 sets out our powers but also imposes restrictions on what we can investigate.
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 we can decide not to investigate a complaint about any action by a council concerning a matter which is outside our jurisdiction. (R (on the application of M) v Commissioner for Local Administration [2006] EHWCC 2847 (Admin))
5. 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:

• 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), as amended, section 34(B))

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How I considered this complaint

6. I considered information provided by the complainant and the Council.
7. I considered the Ombudsman’s Assessment Code.

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My assessment

8. Mr X’s complaint includes concerns about social workers’ bias towards his child’s other parent and the impact this had on court proceedings. He contacted us before the Council had considered the matters via its complaints process. It declined to consider some matters due to ongoing court proceedings.
9. We are prevented in law from considering what happened in court, which includes the content of any reports the Council completed as part of that process. The courts have also said we can decide not to investigate other related matters. This complaint revolves around the issues that were all raised in court, and I am not of the view there is any part of Mr X’s complaint which would be sufficiently separable to those proceedings to justify our involvement.
10. In any event, we could not achieve anything meaningful for Mr X in this case. Some of the outcomes Mr X sought have since been achieved during the Council's complaints process. Since contacting the Ombudsman, he has had the matters the Council decided were separable from the court process investigated thoroughly via the children’s statutory complaints procedure, and this process led to the Council upholding the majority of his complaint.
11. The Council acknowledged its actions were fault and impacted the court’s decision, and it sincerely apologised to Mr X. More recent evidence shows the case has been referred to the courts again, and the Council has completed an up-to-date report about the child’s welfare.
12. The other outcomes Mr X seeks are matters for the courts rather than the Ombudsman. We could not make recommendations relating to contact between the person who caused harm and Mr X’s child. It is for the courts to decide what is in the child’s best interests.
13. We could not achieve anything different by investigating this complaint, and doing so would not add to the investigation that has already taken place.

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Final decision

14. We will not investigate Mr X’s complaint because doing so would not result in a different outcome.

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Investigator's decision on behalf of the Ombudsman