Durham County Council (25 009 510)
Category : Children's care services > Child protection
Decision : Closed after initial enquiries
Decision date : 04 Jun 2026
The Ombudsman's final decision:
Summary: We will not investigate Ms X’s complaint about the Council’s children’s services and its refusal of her request to change social worker. An investigation would not lead to a different outcome. We cannot investigate a complaint about a decision to start court action or what happened in court.
The complaint
- Ms X complains the Council’s children’s services communicated with her poorly and refused her request for a change of social worker.
The Ombudsman’s role and powers
- 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)
- 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 further investigation would not lead to a different outcome.
(Local Government Act 1974, section 24A(6), as amended, section 34(B))
How I considered this complaint
- I considered information provided by the complainant and the Council.
- I considered the Ombudsman’s Assessment Code.
My assessment
- In its complaint response, the Council said although it could not agree to her request for a change of social worker, it did apologise if she felt her voice was not being heard.
- It said since her complaint, the Council had started care proceedings for her children. If she had ongoing concerns, she could raise these through her solicitor and with the court.
- We will not investigate this. The courts have now decided who should care for Ms X’s children and so an investigation into the Council’s actions prior to this would be unlikely to lead to a worthwhile outcome. The Council has apologised to Ms X, which is an appropriate remedy for any distress caused.
- We cannot investigate a decision to start court action or any matter related to court proceedings.
Final decision
- We will not investigate Ms X’s complaint. We cannot investigate any action related to the courts. An investigation into the Council’s actions prior to court proceedings would be unlikely to lead to a worthwhile outcome or achieve anything more.
Investigator's decision on behalf of the Ombudsman