Cheshire East Council (23 011 239)
Category : Children's care services > Child protection
Decision : Closed after initial enquiries
Decision date : 08 Nov 2023
The Ombudsman's final decision:
Summary: We will not investigate this complaint about the content of telephone call. Investigating this would not lead to any worthwhile outcome.
The complaint
- Mr X said the Council insinuated abuse had taken place in a telephone call about the care of his now-adult son.
The Ombudsman’s role and powers
- 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 no worthwhile outcome achievable by our investigation.
(Local Government Act 1974, section 24A(6), as amended, section 34(B))
How I considered this complaint
- I considered information provided by the complainant and the Council.
- I considered the Ombudsman’s Assessment Code.
My assessment
- We have previously considered a complaint by Mr X (23 001 116) in which it became clear he has had a long-running dispute with the Council about the care of his now-adult son. We declined to investigate that complaint because neither the complaint about where Mr X’s son should live, or the complaint about the Council’s refusal to accept the complaint about that, was separable from court action. The Council gained a court order preventing Mr X from making any further complaints about the care of his son. And Mr X also took his own court action.
- This complaint concerns a matter related to the care of Mr X’s son. Mr X knew of this matter before he complained to us in complaint 23 001 116. There is a court injunction that I have seen preventing Mr X from making further complaints about the care of his son.
- Even if there were no court injunction, and even if the complaint did not concern Mr X’s son, or he could not have complained about this matter sooner, investigation by us of a possible insinuation during an historic phone conversation would be unlikely to lead to any worthwhile finding.
Final decision
- We will not investigate Mr X’s complaint because even if it were separable from court action, investigation by us would not lead to any worthwhile outcome.
Investigator's decision on behalf of the Ombudsman