Bolton Metropolitan Borough Council (23 020 110)
Category : Children's care services > Child protection
Decision : Closed after initial enquiries
Decision date : 23 Apr 2024
The Ombudsman's final decision:
Summary: We will not investigate this complaint about the Council’s safeguarding involvement with Miss X and her family. This is because the complaint relates to events that took place more than 12 months ago and there is no good reason to exercise discretion to investigate them now.
The complaint
- Miss X complained about the Council’s safeguarding involvement with her family between April 2022 and January 2023.
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 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 Miss X and the Council.
- I considered the Ombudsman’s Assessment Code.
My assessment
- In April 2022, the Council began safeguarding enquiries due to concerns raised about Miss X and her children. The Council ended its involvement with Miss X in January 2023.
- In April 2023, Miss X raised a complaint about the safeguarding enquiry and the Council’s actions and decisions during this time. The Council began a statutory children’s complaints investigation into the concerns she raised. The investigation concluded in January 2024 with the stage 3 panel making several recommendations to address the upheld points including apologising to Miss X and providing her with a financial award.
- The Ombudsman will not usually exercise discretion to investigate complaints that took place more than 12 months ago unless there are good reasons for the delay. In this case, most of the events complained about took place in April and May 2022. Complainants may bring their complaints to the Ombudsman if the Council has had the complaint for 12 weeks. It therefore would have been reasonable for Miss X to bring the complaint to us earlier.
Final decision
- We will not investigate Miss X’s complaint because the complaint relates to events that took place more than 12 months ago and there is no good reason to exercise discretion them now.
Investigator's decision on behalf of the Ombudsman