Lancashire County Council (24 006 148)
Category : Children's care services > Child protection
Decision : Closed after initial enquiries
Decision date : 04 Sep 2024
The Ombudsman's final decision:
Summary: We will not investigate this complaint about how the Council handled Mr X’s children’s case and his more recent request for a practice review. The substantive matter is late, and we will not consider a complaint about more recent events in isolation.
The complaint
- Mr X complained the Council agreed to carry out a Child Safeguarding Practice Review (CSPR), but did not then do so. He said the Council misunderstood a second complaint about more recent events, and wrongly closed both complaints as being late. He wanted the Council to apologise and pay him £50.
The Ombudsman’s role and powers
- 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 complainant and the Council.
- I considered the Ombudsman’s Assessment Code.
My assessment
- We will not consider the substantive matter. The relevant events happened in 2012, and the law says people must bring complaints to us within 12 months of becoming aware of the matter unless there are good reasons for delay. There is not a good reason for the delay in this case. Mr X was complaining about other related events at the time, and could also have raised this complaint then.
- We also will not consider the complaint about how the Council handled Mr X’s request in 2024 for a CSPR and his complaints about the matter. The Council declined to carry out a review because Mr X brought the matter to it 12 years after events. Mr X sought to isolate his complaint to us as being solely about the Council’s more recent responses to him. However, it is not a good use of public resources to investigate complaints about complaint procedures, if we are unable to deal with the substantive issue.
Final decision
- We will not investigate Mr X’s complaint because the substantive matter is late, and it is not a good use of public resources to only consider the more recent correspondence about the historic events.
Investigator's decision on behalf of the Ombudsman