Summary: We will not investigate Mr X’s complaint about two children and family reports the Council has completed. This is because there is no sign of fault in the Council’s decision not to consider his complaint via its complaints procedure whilst there are ongoing court proceedings.

The complaint

1. Mr X complains about two children and family reports the Council completed. He says the first report is full of spelling mistakes; does not include his comments and sides with his children’s mother. Mr X says he was not involved in the latest children and family report and this has led to his children being placed at risk of harm.

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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 effect 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 an investigation if we decide the tests set out in our Assessment Code are not met. (Local Government Act 1974, section 24A(6), as amended)
3. We do not start an investigation if we decide there is not enough evidence of fault to justify investigating. (Local Government Act 1974, section 24A(6), as amended, section 34(B))
4. The Local Government Act 1974 sets out our powers but also imposes restrictions on what we can investigate.
5. We cannot investigate a complaint about the start of court action or what happened in court. (Local Government Act 1974, Schedule 5/5A, paragraph 1/3, as amended)

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How I considered this complaint

6. I considered information provided by the complainant and the Council.
7. I considered the Ombudsman’s Assessment Code.

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My assessment

8. Mr X complained to the Council about two children and family reports it completed, as set out in paragraph one, above.
9. The Council told Mr X it could not consider his complaint via its complaints procedure at present because there are currently ongoing family court proceedings. It advised Mr X to raise his concerns to the court during the proceedings. It responded to Mr X informally, outside of the complaints procedure, to try to address his concerns.
10. We will not investigate this complaint. This is because there is no sign of fault in the Council’s decision not to investigate the matter via its complaints procedure whilst there are ongoing family court proceedings. The Council has made this decision in line with the relevant statutory guidance to local authority childrens services on the handling of complaints where there are ongoing court proceedings. This is in order to prevent the proceedings, which must take precedence over a complaint investigation, from being at risk of being prejudiced by a concurrent investigation.
11. If the Council’s informal response has not resolved matters for Mr X it would be open to him to resubmit his complaint to the Council once the court proceedings have concluded to see whether there are any matters the Council can consider which were not, and could not have been, raised in the proceedings. We are unable to consider complaints about matters that have been, or could have been, raised and considered during court proceedings. We have no discretion to do so. Complaints about the preparation, collation and analysis of evidence including reports written by the Council for court proceedings or the use of a report written previously, in subsequent court proceedings, lie outside our jurisdiction and we have no discretion to consider them.

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Final decision

12. We will not investigate Mr X’s complaint because there is no sign of fault in the Council’s decision not to consider his complaint via its complaints procedure whilst there are ongoing court proceedings on related matters. We also cannot consider complaints about matters that are being, or could have been, raised and considered in court proceedings.

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Investigator's decision on behalf of the Ombudsman