Leeds City Council (22 009 489)
Category : Children's care services > Child protection
Decision : Closed after initial enquiries
Decision date : 31 Oct 2022
The Ombudsman's final decision:
Summary: We cannot investigate this complaint about the Council’s actions which led to the complainants’ child being removed from her care in 2020. This is because the matters have been considered in court which places them outside of our jurisdiction.
The complaint
- The complainant, who I will call Miss X, complains about the actions of the Council’s children’s services which led to care proceedings which resulted in her child being removed from her care. Miss X says the Council failed to validate information and failed to comply with relevant case law.
The Ombudsman’s role and powers
- The Local Government Act 1974 sets out our powers but also imposes restrictions on what we can investigate.
- 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)
- 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)
How I considered this complaint
- I considered information provided by the complainant and the Council.
- I considered the Ombudsman’s Assessment Code.
My assessment
- I cannot investigate Miss X’s complaint. This is because the matters she complains about formed part of care proceedings considered in court. The Ombudsman is unable to investigate any matter that has been subject to court proceedings and therefore this places this complaint outside of our jurisdiction.
- Even if there were elements of Miss X’s complaint which were separable from the court proceedings I would still not investigate them. This is because the events happened more than two years ago, and it would have been reasonable to have expected Miss X to complain about them sooner.
Final decision
- We will not investigate Miss X’s complaint because the matters have been considered in court.
Investigator's decision on behalf of the Ombudsman