Summary: We will not investigate Mr X’s complaint about children services actions. We cannot investigate the same issues a Court is considering and the Information Commissioner’s Office is better placed to consider his complaint about records accuracy.

The complaint

1. The complainant, whom I shall call Mr X, says the Council has prevented him seeing his child and has inaccurate information about him.

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The Ombudsman’s role and powers

2. 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)
3. 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)
4. We investigate 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 continue an investigation if we decide there is another body better placed to consider this complaint. (Local Government Act 1974, section 24A(6), as amended)

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How I considered this complaint

5. I considered information provided by Mr X which included the Councils reply.
6. I considered the Ombudsman’s Assessment Code.

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My assessment

7. Mr X says the Council’s children services’ team wrongly believed accusations made against him by his child’s mother. He says this led to him not seeing his child. He is now involved in Court proceedings to see his child. He says the Council has provided information to the Court which is wrong. He says the Council holds inaccurate information about him.
8. We cannot investigate the contact Mr X has with his child and why that stopped, as this is considered within the Court proceedings. We cannot investigate any Council information which is used in those proceedings.
9. The Council has no power to prevent contact between Mr X and his child without a Court order. Only a Court or a person with parental responsibility can decide contact.
10. Mr X has the right to ask records are ‘rectified’. This means any factual mistakes are corrected. If the Council refuses to do so, he can complain to the Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO). Parliament set up the ICO to consider data protection disputes which includes ‘right to rectification’ disputes. The ICO are better placed than us to consider if the Council should change its records particularly because there are complex exemptions for child protection case files.

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Final decision

11. We will not investigate Mr X’s complaint because we cannot investigate the same issues a Court is considering and the ICO is better placed to consider his complaint about records accuracy.

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Investigator's decision on behalf of the Ombudsman