Summary: We will not investigate this complaint about alledged professional misconduct and negligence by the Council with respect to its Children’s social services involvement with the complainant’s family. This is because the issues occurred in 2022 and the complaint is therefore late. We considered exercising our discretion and if we should investigate despite the passage of time. However, we consider the complainant could have raised the issues with us sooner.

The complaint

1. The complainant (Mr Q) complains about alledged professional conduct and negligence by the Council with respect to its Children’s social services involvement with his family. In particular, he says a social workers was dismissive of concerns he raised about his daughter being at risk of harm. Mr Q states that instead of investigate these matters, the Council’s social worker instead created a false narrative in relation to concerns about him. He says the Council’s involvement was biased and failed to examine evidence properly.
2. In summary, Mr Q says the alledged faults has resulted in him suffering with serious mental health issues and him being unable to have contact with his daughter. As a desired outcome, he wants the Council to acknowledge its social worker acted negligently and unlawfully.

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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 it would be reasonable for the person to ask for a council review or appeal. (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 and the Council. I also considered the Ombudsman’s Assessment Code.

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My assessment

6. The legal restriction I outline at paragraph three (above) inserts a time limit for a member of the public to bring their complaint to the attention of the Ombudsman. Its intention is two-fold: to provide us with the best opportunity of arriving at a robust, evidence-based decision on complaints about recent events and to ensure fairness by enabling us to decline an investigation into historic matters, which could and should have formed the basis of a complaint to us far sooner.
7. The Children Act 1989 established the requirement for councils to have a formal representations procedure to deal with complaints about local authority functions under Part 3 of the Act and some sections of Parts 4 and 5. We call this ‘the statutory children’s complaints procedure’. The statutory complaints procedure has three stages.
8. The issues raised by Mr Q occurred in 2022 and he complained to the Council. The Council concluded the stage two process in March 2023 and communicated this to Mr Q the same month. The Council outlined how Mr Q could request a stage three review within 20 working days. Mr Q contacted the Council in early January 2025 raising issues which were subject to its prior investigation. The Council noted that Mr Q did not request a stage three review following its stage two investigation and report.
9. In my view, if Mr Q was dissatisfied with the outcome of the Council’s investigation under stage two of the statutory complaints procedure in March 2023, it would have been reasonable for him to have requested a review of that decision at stage three. He did not do so and it has been over 12 months since the outcome of the stage two investigation to when he contacted the Council again in early January 2025 raising similar concerns. The complaint is therefore late and for the reasons given I consider there are no good reasons to exercise discretion and investigate notwithstanding the passage of time.

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Final decision

10. We will not investigate this complaint. This is because the restrictions I outline at paragraph three and four (above) apply.

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Investigator's decision on behalf of the Ombudsman