Summary: We will not investigate this complaint about a social worker’s assessment. This is because investigation could not establish a causal link between the fault the complainant identifies and the injustice he says he has suffered.

The complaint

1. The complainant, Mr X, complains that the Council produced a biased and inaccurate social work assessment and failed to respond reasonably to his subsequent complaint.

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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 effect 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 an investigation if we decide the tests set out in our Assessment Code are not met. (Local Government Act 1974, section 24A(6), as amended)

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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. Mr X’s children were the subject of a social worker’s single assessment. Mr X says the assessment was carried out with bias against him and failed to take account of relevant evidence. He says the resulting report is inaccurate and defamatory.
6. Mr X further complains that the Council failed to address his complaint of bias on the social worker’s part. He says it omitted this matter from its responses, responding instead to a version of the complaint it had constructed.
7. Mr X says the report led to him losing contact with his children. He wants the Council to apologise for the content of the report.
8. The Ombudsman will not investigate this complaint. This is because we could not attribute the injustice Mr X says he has suffered to the fault he identified. The Ombudsman cannot express a view on whether something is defamatory. Only a court can determine this definitively. If Mr X believes the report contains false information, his recourse is to pursue his Right to Rectification. There is no role for us.
9. Neither could we establish a direct causal link between the content of a single assessment and contact. The Council has no power to prevent a parent from exercising parental rights. If the content of the report was material to another party’s actions, that is a matter between Mr X and the other party. We cannot intervene.
10. Where the substantive matter does not fall to be investigated, it is not a good use of public money for us to investigate how a council responded to a complaint. That is the case here. We will not consider whether there was fault in how the Council addressed Mr X’s complaint.

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Final decision

11. We will not investigate Mr X’s complaint because investigation could not establish a causal link between the alleged fault and injustice.

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Investigator's decision on behalf of the Ombudsman