Summary: We will not investigate this complaint that the Council has failed to act on the complainant’s concerns about the welfare of his children and his contact with them. This is because there is insufficient evidence of fault on the Council’s part causing injustice to warrant investigation, and parts of the complaint concern matters which could have been raised in court, or are closely related to such matters.

The complaint

1. The complainant, who I will refer to as Mr X, complains that the Council failed to act on his safeguarding concerns about his children, his concerns about parental alienation and his former partner’s actions in denying him contact with his children.

Back to top

The Ombudsman’s role and powers

2. 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))
3. 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, or
• any injustice is not significant enough to justify our involvement, or
• we could not add to any previous investigation by the organization.

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

Back to top

How I considered this complaint

4. I considered information provided by the complainant and the Council.
5. I considered the Ombudsman’s Assessment Code.

Back to top

My assessment

6. Mr X’s children live with their mother, his former partner. Mr X has no contact with them. He attributes this to fault on the Council’s part.

7. Mr X made a safeguarding referral to the Council in June 2022. The correspondence shows that the Council screened the referral and decided that there were no safeguarding concerns. Mr X complains that he was not informed of the outcome of his referral, and did not find out about it until he received court documents issued at the end of November 2022. He further complains that the Council failed to act on concerns about a third party who had access to the children, and matters which he regards as amounting to parental alienation.
8. The evidence shows that the issue of contact was the subject of private law proceedings initiated by Mr X in 2022. The court did not make any orders because Mr X decided to withdraw his application due to ill-health.
9. The Ombudsman will not investigate Mr X’s complaint. Contact is primarily a matter for the courts. If Mr X wanted a new contact order, or believed anyone was in breach of an existing order, his recourse was to pursue the matter in court. There is no evidence that a court instructed the Council to be involved in managing or facilitating contact, so we cannot criticise it for not doing so.
10. The Council has set out why it did not act on the safeguarding concerns Mr X raised in 2022, and its reasons are clear and defensible. It has accepted that it cannot demonstrate that it informed Mr X of its decision at the point at which the screening took place and has apologised for this. Given that we cannot criticise the screening decision itself, the alleged failure to notify Mr X promptly does not provide sufficient grounds for us to intervene.
11. With regard to the other matters Mr X raised, the correspondence shows that the Council has set out that they amount to private matters. It properly advised him to take legal advice if he wishes to pursue them. Whether he does so is a matter for him, but there is nothing to suggest that the Council’s position is flawed.
12. The only exception to this is the issue of a third party having access to the children. The correspondence indicates that a family member raised this matter with the Council in November 2022. The Council accepts that it should have considered it further and it did not. It has apologised. Where a complaint has already been upheld, the Ombudsman will not normally intervene to reconsider it. That is the case here. If Mr X believes this individual still presents a risk to his children, it is open to him to make a new safeguarding referral.

Back to top

Final decision

13. We will not investigate Mr X ‘s complaint. This is because there is insufficient evidence of fault causing Mr X injustice to warrant investigation, and parts of the complaint concern matters which could have been considered in court, or are closely related to such matters.

Back to top

Investigator's decision on behalf of the Ombudsman