Summary: We will not investigate Mrs X’s complaint about the Council stopping her contact with her grandchild. The law prevents us from investigating anything that has been the subject of court proceedings. It would be reasonable for Mrs X to take her concerns about court ordered contact arrangements back to court.

The complaint

1. Mrs X complains the Council has stopped her from having contact visits with her grandchild since May 2023, when the court has ordered she should have six contact visits per year. Mrs X says the Council has been ignoring her complaints about this and her grandchild’s wishes.

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The Ombudsman’s role and powers

2. 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)
3. We have the power to start or end an investigation into a complaint about actions the law allows us to investigate. We may decide not to start or continue with an investigation if we think the issues could reasonably be or have been mentioned as part of the legal proceedings regarding a closely related matter. (Local Government Act 1974, sections 24A(6) and 34B(8), as amended, section 34(B))

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How I considered this complaint

4. I considered information provided by the complainant and the Council.

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My assessment

5. We previously considered Mrs X’s earlier complaint about the Council’s decision not to investigate her complaints under stage two of the statutory complaint process for Children’s Social Care.
6. The Council has since met with Mrs X and explained the reasons why contact visits with her grandchild have stopped.
7. Mrs X will need to return to court if she believes the Council is not complying with the terms of a court order in respect of her visits with her grandchild. Only the courts can decide whether to enforce the contact arrangements. We have no powers to intervene in such matters and cannot achieve the outcome Mrs X wants. We will therefore not investigate further.

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Final decision

8. We will not investigate Mrs X’s complaint because the court is better placed to deal with issues of compliance with court orders.

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Investigator's decision on behalf of the Ombudsman