Summary: We will not investigate this late complaint about the Council’s response to child protection concerns. There is not a good reason for the delay in bringing the substantive part of the complaint to the Ombudsman. Any fault in more recent events has not caused injustice.

The complaint

1. Ms X complained about the Council’s involvement in her children’s case. She said it failed to investigate child protection concerns relating to teachers, and failed to support the family. She said it provided incorrect information during complaint-handling.
2. Miss X said her child missed out on support and this had a subsequent impact on their schooling, with two months’ lost education. She wanted the Council to apologise, provide explanations and make service improvements to the availability of mental health support for children.

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The Ombudsman’s role and powers

3. 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)
4. 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:

• any fault has not caused injustice to the person who complained, or
• further investigation would not lead to a different outcome, or
• we cannot achieve the outcome someone wants.

(Local Government Act 1974, section 24A(6), as amended, section 34(B))

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How I considered this complaint

5. I considered information provided by the complainant.
6. I considered the Ombudsman’s Assessment Code.

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My assessment

7. Ms X’s complaint relates to alleged incidents in late 2022 between her children and their teachers. Ms X says she raised concerns via a service supporting her children in June 2023, but that no action followed.
8. Ms X complained to the Council in March 2024. The Council considered the matter at stages one and two of its internal complaints process and issued a final response in May 2024. Ms X complained to us in July 2024.
9. The law says people must bring complaints to us within 12 months of becoming aware of the matter unless there are good reasons. Ms X complained to the Council nine months after she says she raised her concerns, and it also took a further two months for her to bring her complaint to us after she received the Council’s final response. The Council responded promptly to Ms X’s complaints, so it was not responsible for the delay in the matter being brought to us. There is not sufficient justification for us to consider the substantial part of the complaint now.
10. Parts of Ms X’s complaint are about more recent events. These more recent parts of the complaint concern the Council’s record-keeping and accuracy of information relating to any investigation that took place in 2023.
11. Ms X had withdrawn her children from the relevant school by early 2023 and they had no subsequent contact with the teachers. The Council’s record-keeping and information it held had no bearing on the children and so any fault in these matters did not cause any injustice. Given this, and that these matters are peripheral to the late substantive matter, we could not achieve a meaningful outcome in this case.

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Final decision

12. We will not investigate Ms X’s complaint because the substantive matter is late, and any fault in more recent events did not cause the children injustice.

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Investigator's decision on behalf of the Ombudsman