Summary: We will not investigate Miss X’s complaint about the Council’s child protection involvement with her family in the late 1980’s. This is because there is no realistic prospect of us being able to carry out an effective investigation now, 35 years on from the matters complained about.

The complaint

1. The complainant, whom I shall call Miss X, complains about matters relating to the Council’s child protection involvement with her family in the late 1980’s when she was a baby.

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The Ombudsman’s role and powers

2. 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)
3. The Local Government Act 1974 sets out our powers but also imposes restrictions on what we can investigate.
4. 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)

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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. Miss X recently complained to the Council about its child protection involvement with her family in the late 1980s and about its decisions at the time. Miss X says the Council’s decisions led to her continued abuse.
8. Miss X only became aware of some of these matters recently, following a subject access request.
9. The Council told Miss X it would not accept her complaint. This is because it relates to events which took place over 30 years ago which means staff involved have almost certainly left the Council and are highly unlikely to be contactable. Even if staff could be contacted, it said it could not rely on their recollection of events so long after they happened nor could it rely on the quality of historic case recording. Also, the legislation, practices and procedures in place at the time were substantially different to those in place now.
10. The difficulties the Council sets out in being able to carry out an effective investigation into this matter now, 35 years on from the events complained about, also apply to any investigation by this office. I cannot see there would be any realistic prospect of us being able to carry out a meaningful investigation and reach a full, fair and sound view on the matters complained about now.

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Final decision

11. We will not investigate Miss X’s complaint. This is because there is no realistic prospect of us being able to carry out a meaningful investigation into these events now given the very significant passage of time since the matters complained about.

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Investigator's decision on behalf of the Ombudsman