Summary: We will not investigate Mr X’s complaint about matters relating to the Council’s child protection involvement with his family. This is because there is no sign of fault in the Council’s decision not to consider his complaint until ongoing court proceedings have concluded. The Council has already offered Mr X a suitable remedy for its delay in informing him of its decision.

The complaint

1. The complainant, whom I shall call Mr X, complains the Council included baseless allegations against him of domestic violence on his case files along with information copied and pasted from other cases. He also complains it breached his confidentiality during a child protection conference when a third party was able to hear what was being said in the meeting.

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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 do not start an investigation if we decide the tests set out in our Assessment Code are not met. (Local Government Act 1974, section 24A(6), as amended)

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How I considered this complaint

3. I considered information provided by the complainant and the Council.
4. I considered the Ombudsman’s Assessment Code.

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My assessment

5. Mr X complained to the Council about information held on his case files and about a breach of confidentiality. He complained to this office that the Council was not responding to his complaint.
6. In response to our initial contact with the Council it explained it could not consider Mr X’s complaint via its complaints procedure until the ongoing private court proceedings have concluded. It acknowledged this had not been communicated to Mr X and apologised for this. It wrote to Mr X to apologise for this and it offered him a good will payment of £150.
7. We will not investigate Mr X’s complaint. This is because there is no sign of fault in the Council’s decision not to consider the complaint whilst there are ongoing court proceedings. This approach is in line with the statutory guidance for local authorities on the handling of childrens services complaints and is in order to ensure any legal proceedings, which must take precedence, are not prejudiced by a concurrent complaint investigation. The Council has offered a suitable remedy to Mr X for its delay in informing him of its decision.
8. It will be open to Mr X to resubmit his complaint to the Council once the court proceedings have concluded. Mr X may wish to raise the data matter to the Information Commissioner’s Office once the Council has considered it as this is the body best placed to consider complaints about data matters.

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Final decision

9. We will not investigate Mr X’s complaint because there is no sign of fault in the Council’s decision not to consider his complaint whilst there are ongoing court proceedings, and the Council has offered a suitable remedy for its delay in telling him its decision.

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Investigator's decision on behalf of the Ombudsman