Summary: We will not investigate Mrs X’s complaint a Council employee connected to her family has interfered with and influenced decisions made about her children. The Council has investigated Mrs X’s concerns and confirmed the employee has not been involved or had access to records about Mrs X’s children. There is no realistic prospect of us finding evidence of fault that would justify our involvement.

The complaint

1. Mrs X complains a Council employee connected to her family has influenced the decision to place her children on a Child Protection plan. Mrs X wants the Council to acknowledge this and confirm professional boundaries have been crossed by the employee.

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The Ombudsman’s role and powers

2. The Local Government Act 1974 sets out our powers but also imposes restrictions on what we can investigate.
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
• we could not add to any previous investigation by the organisation. (Local Government Act 1974, section 24A(6), as amended, section 34(B))

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How I considered this complaint

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

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My assessment

5. The Council has responded to Mrs X’s complaint as set out above under both stages of its corporate complaint procedure. It has undertaken an audit of electronic records for Mrs X’s family and confirmed the employee connected to her family has never accessed those records. The Council has also confirmed through the employee’s line manager that they have had no interaction or discussions with any other staff member working on the case for Mrs X’s family. The employee declared their connection to Mrs X’s family to their line manager and the Council is satisfied there were appropriate measures in place to ensure the information was kept confidential.
6. The Council’s response to Mrs X’s complaints provides a detailed explanation of the thorough checks undertaken and measures in place to ensure the integrity of its decision-making in her children’s case was not compromised. There is unlikely to be any further evidence within the Council’s records which we could additionally examine to add to the conclusions already reached. The Council has noted the employee’s interaction with one of Mrs X’s children outside of their role for the Council is due to their children being friends.
7. We will not normally investigate a complaint where the Council has provided a detailed and thorough response. In this case, the question for us is whether our intervention would add anything to the investigation the Council has carried out. There is nothing to suggest that it would do so.

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Final decision

8. We will not investigate Mrs X’s complaint because further investigation by us would not add the responses the Council has already provided.

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Investigator's decision on behalf of the Ombudsman