Summary: We will not investigate this complaint about how the Council dealt with Miss X’s complaint. Investigation by us of the substantive child protection matters underlying the complaint would be unlikely to lead to a finding of fault, and there would thus be no worthwhile outcome from investigating how the Council dealt with the complaint about these matters.

The complaint

1. Miss X complained the Council failed to deal with her complaint properly and wrongly claimed she had filed to engage with the process.

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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 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
• there is no worthwhile outcome achievable by our investigation.

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

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How I considered this complaint

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

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My assessment

5. The issue underlying the complaint is a child protection matter. The Council made Miss X’s child subject to a child protection plan in 2023, and has since done so again in 2025. The issues raised in the record of the Initial Child Protection Conference (ICPC) in 2023 were the child not attending school, and Miss X’s disagreements with medical professionals regarding the child’s health. These issues were more extensive in the record of the 2025 ICPC. This laid out concerns about the child not having attended school for two years, difficulties in police and social workers gaining access to the child, concerns about the child’s physical condition, and concerns about Miss X’s lack of engagement with medical professionals, as well as her complaints about them.
6. If we were to investigate the substantive matters that led to Miss X’s complaint, it is unlikely that would lead to a finding of fault. It therefore follows that there is unlikely to be any worthwhile outcome from investigating how the Council dealt with Miss X’s complaint about the Council’s actions.

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Final decision

7. We will not investigate Miss X’s complaint because doing so would be unlikely to lead to any worthwhile outcome. That is because investigation of the substantive matters underlying the complaint would be unlikely to lead to a finding of fault.

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Investigator's decision on behalf of the Ombudsman