Summary: We will not investigate this complaint about information about the complainant’s child contained in a report produced by the Council. This is because our intervention would achieve nothing significant.

The complaint

1. The complainant, Mrs X, complains that the Council produced a report which contains inaccurate information relating to her son and has declined to correct its content.

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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 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))

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How I considered this complaint

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

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My assessment

5. Mrs X says the Council was at fault in producing a report following an incident reported to it by a third party. She says the report is inaccurate, accusatory and suggests her son did something he did not do.
6. Mrs X says the Council has declined to change the report and to address the fact that it contains a false accusation. She says the third party has also asked for it to be changed. She wants the Council to accept that it has been at fault and to make the appropriate changes to the report.
7. The Ombudsman will not investigate Mrs X’s complaint. We will not ask a council to retrospectively alter records, as these reflect the officers’ views at the time they were produced. This is the case even where those views can be shown to be incorrect. The most we would expect is that a record of a complainant’s dissenting views is added to the file. Mrs X has set out her views in her complaint, so they already form part of the record of the case. Our intervention would achieve nothing further.
8. It is open to Mrs X to seek changes to the Council’s files through the right to rectification, which exists for this purpose. There is no role for the Ombudsman.

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Final decision

9. We will not investigate Mrs X’s complaint because our intervention would achieve nothing significant.

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Investigator's decision on behalf of the Ombudsman