Summary: We will not investigate this complaint about the Council’s involvement with the complainant’s family. This is because we cannot consider matters linked to ongoing court proceedings. There is nothing we can add to the Council’s response which explained court proceedings need to conclude before it can consider the complaint.

The complaint

1. The complainant, whom I shall refer to as Miss X, complained about the social worker involved with her family during ongoing court proceedings. Miss X complained the social worker did not respond to emails, failed to provide important information, and produced false reports used in court. Miss X said the social worker committed perjury. The Council has said it will not consider Miss X’s complaint because of ongoing court proceedings.

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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 investigate complaints about ‘maladministration’ and ‘service failure’, which we call ‘fault’. We must also consider whether any fault has had an adverse effect on the person making the complaint, which we call ‘injustice’. We provide a free service, but must use public money carefully. We may decide not to start an investigation if the tests set out in our Assessment Code are not met. (Local Government Act 1974, section 24A(6), as amended)
4. 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)
5. The law says we cannot normally investigate a complaint when someone could take the matter to court. However, we may decide to investigate if we consider it would be unreasonable to expect the person to go to court. (Local Government Act 1974, section 26(6)(c), as amended)
6. 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))

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How I considered this complaint

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

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My assessment

9. We will not start an investigation into Miss X’s complaint. The Ombudsman cannot consider matters which are linked to ongoing court proceedings or which could reasonably be raised in court. We cannot consider complaints about the preparation, collation, and analysis of evidence for court proceedings. This includes reports written by social workers or the evidence given in court. Such matters are outside our jurisdiction with no discretion to consider them. The actions of the social worker are too closely linked to the ongoing court action to be separated.
10. We also cannot consider the Council’s decision not to investigate Miss X’s complaint. This is because it is directly linked to matters outside our jurisdiction. The exception set out at paragraph 6 therefore applies.
11. The Council has said it has placed Miss X’s complaint on hold while there are ongoing court proceedings. Once the court proceedings have finished, it is open to Miss X to resume her complaint with the Council. If she was unhappy with the Council’s response, she could make a fresh complaint to the Ombudsman. We could then assess her complaint. We would need to decide if there are matters within our jurisdiction which we should consider.

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Final decision

12. We will not investigate Miss X’s complaint because of ongoing court proceedings. It is open to Miss X to pursue her complaint with the Council once the proceedings are complete.

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Investigator's decision on behalf of the Ombudsman