Summary: We will not investigate Mr X’s complaint about the content of an assessment the Council completed about his children. This is because our intervention would achieve nothing significant.

The complaint

1. Mr X complains the Council’s child and family Assessment is biased, flawed and unfairly targets him. He says this has caused a negative impact on him and his family. He was the Council to write an unbiased assessment.

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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 another body better placed to consider this complaint, 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 Ombudsman’s Assessment Code.

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My assessment

4. The Council has explained it will not alter the contents of the child and family assessment as this reflects the professional opinions of the Social Worker. The Council has confirmed it will correct any spelling and grammatical errors within the assessment. It has also confirmed it will place Mr X’s comments about the content of the assessment on its records.
5. We will not investigate Mr X’s complaint because we would not achieve the outcome he is seeking. We will not ask a council to change its records or reports retrospectively. The most we would normally seek to achieve is that a record of a complainant’s dissenting views is added to the file. The Council has already confirmed that it will add details of Mr X’s comments about the assessment to its case records and we would not seek to achieve anything further.
6. If Mr X believes the assessment contains false information about him, he may pursue his right to rectification. It is open to him to bring his concerns to the attention of the Information Commissioner’s Office, which is better placed than the Ombudsman to consider them.

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Final decision

7. We will not investigate Mr X’s complaint because our intervention would not add anything significant to the response from the Council.

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Investigator's decision on behalf of the Ombudsman