Warwickshire County Council (24 005 566)
Category : Children's care services > Child protection
Decision : Closed after initial enquiries
Decision date : 01 Oct 2024
The Ombudsman's final decision:
Summary: We will not investigate Miss X’s complaint about safeguarding. There is not enough evidence of fault by the Council to warrant our further involvement.
The complaint
- Miss X said the Council ignored concerns raised by a professional that children were at risk leading to harm to her child.
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 not enough evidence of fault to justify investigating.
(Local Government Act 1974, section 24A(6), as amended, section 34(B))
- The Local Government Act 1974 sets out our powers but also imposes restrictions on what we can investigate.
- We cannot investigate most complaints about what happens in schools. (Local Government Act 1974, Schedule 5, paragraph 5(2), as amended)
How I considered this complaint
- I considered information provided by the complainant and the Council.
- I considered the Ombudsman’s Assessment Code.
My assessment
- The actions of the school attended by Miss X’s child lie outside our legal powers. We can only consider the Council’s safeguarding actions.
- I have seen no evidence that the Council received evidence that would have alerted it to the likely risk of a specific act by a very young child against Miss X’s very young child in a school classroom. The Council’s actions in response to the report of what happened in the classroom were within the range I would expect to see. Investigation by us would not be likely to find it should have asked the school to do more.
Final decision
- We will not investigate Miss X’s complaint because there is not enough evidence of fault by the Council to warrant our further involvement.
Investigator's decision on behalf of the Ombudsman