Summary: We will not investigate Mr X’s complaint about how the Council dealt with a safeguarding concern raised about him. This is because there is insufficient evidence of fault causing Mr X a significant injustice.

The complaint

1. Mr X complains about how the Council dealt with a safeguarding complaint about him. He says the Council did not follow the correct process or properly consider relevant evidence.

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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
• any fault has not caused injustice to the person who complained, or
• any injustice is not significant enough to justify our involvement.

(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 Council received an allegation about Mr X which was forwarded to the Local Authority Designated Officer (LADO). A decision was made at a multi-agency meeting that the allegation should be substantiated and therefore a referral was made to the Disclosure and Barring Service (DBS).
6. I will not investigate this complaint. Mr X has accepted that the event detailed in the allegation had taken place so the decision to substantiate the allegation is not affected by fault. Therefore, even if there had been administrative errors in how the LADO dealt with the allegation, these have not caused Mr X a significant enough injustice to warrant investigation.

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Final decision

7. We will not investigate Mr X’s complaint because there is insufficient evidence of fault causing Mr X a significant injustice.

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Investigator's decision on behalf of the Ombudsman