Summary: We will not investigate Mr X’s complaint about the Council’s handling of his child’s case. There is not enough evidence of fault to justify us investigating. The law prevents us from investigating Mr X’s concerns about court proceedings and reports.

The complaint

1. Mr X complains about the actions of specific Council employees involved in his child’s case. He alleges the Council has:
1. failed to act on a court breach;
2. ignored his child’s wish to live with Mr X;
3. relied on falsified messages and baseless claims to undermine Mr X’s parenting;
4. failed to safeguard his child while in their mother’s care;
5. committed perjury during court proceedings; and,
6. given false information in a report for the court.

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The Ombudsman’s role and powers

2. 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)
3. We have the power to start or end an investigation into a complaint about actions the law allows us to investigate. We may decide not to start or continue with an investigation if we think the issues could reasonably be, or have been mentioned as part of the legal proceedings regarding a closely related matter. (Local Government Act 1974, sections 24A(6) and 34B(8), as amended, section 34(B))
4. 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, or
• further investigation would not lead to a different outcome, 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

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

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My assessment

7. The statutory children’s complaints procedure was set up to provide children, young people and those involved in their welfare with access to an independent, thorough and prompt response to their concerns. Because of this, if a council has investigated something under the statutory children’s complaint process, the Ombudsman would not normally re-investigate it.
8. The Council completed its stage two investigation into Mr X’s complaints in early July 2024. The independent Investigating Officer (IO) who completed the stage two investigation did not uphold Mr X’s complaints against the Council. The Council advised Mr X he could request escalation of his complaint to stage three within 20 working days of the stage two complaint response.
9. Mr X did not return to the Council to request escalation of his complaint to stage three until late October 2025. The Council accepted Mr X’s disability and other significant issues in his life had made it difficult for him to escalate his complaint within 20 working days. The Council explained it could not allow the matter to remain open indefinitely and gave Mr X until 9 December 2024 to provide information about why he remained dissatisfied with stage two complaint response. On 10 December 2024, the Council emailed Mr X to confirm it had closed his complaint as it had not heard from him.
10. We will not investigate this complaint because there is not enough evidence of fault to justify our involvement. The Council gave Mr X significantly more time than the statutory procedure allows to provide details of his dissatisfaction with the stage two complaint response. There is unlikely to be further evidence available that would lead us to a different outcome or conclusions. In this case, the question for us is whether our intervention would add anything to the Council’s investigation and there is nothing to suggest that it would do so.
11. Since bringing his complaint to us, Mr X has tried to submit a further complaint to the Council about the information it has provided to the court. As part of private law proceedings involving children, the court may ask the Council to produce a section 7 or 37 report. The court will then consider the report as part of its decision making. In this case the court asked the Council to produce a section 7 report about Mr X’s child. Because the section 7 forms part of court proceedings, we have no jurisdiction to investigate their preparation or content.
12. Mr X has alleged Council employees have committed perjury. This is a legal issue that can only the court can determine. We have no power to intervene or act in place of the court in such matters. It would be reasonable for Mr X to return to court if he believes perjury has been committed or he has any dispute with the content of the section 7 report.
13. Mr X has also complained about the specific actions of individual Council employees, including Social Workers. Our role is to look into the Council’s actions as a corporate body, rather than to investigate an individual. If Mr X has concerns about the professionalism or conduct of an individual Social Worker, he can report these to their professional regulator, Social Work England.

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Final decision

14. We will not investigate Mr X’s complaints because there is not enough evidence of fault or the law prevents us from investigating anything that has been the subject of court proceedings.

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Investigator's decision on behalf of the Ombudsman