Summary: We will not investigate this complaint about the Council’s involvement with Mr X’s family. This is because an investigation would be unlikely to add anything worthwhile to the Council’s response or lead to a different outcome.

The complaint

1. The complainant, whom I shall refer to as Mr X, complained about the Council’s involvement with his family and its Early Help service. Mr X’s complaint included:
• A social worker visiting the family home to speak with his daughter (Y) – rather than visiting her school and ignoring his request a camera not being used during the meeting.
• The Council asking what support he needed, including financial help, increasing Mr X’s expectations, and then not responding.
• Slow complaint handling.
2. Mr X says the Council’s actions have affected his daughter. Mr X says he now sees Y less and wants compensation, extra support for Y, and the Council to make service improvements.

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The Ombudsman’s role and powers

3. 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
• we could not add to any previous investigation by the organisation, or
• further investigation would not lead to a different outcome, or
• we cannot achieve the outcome someone wants, or
• there is no worthwhile outcome achievable by our investigation.

(Local Government Act 1974, section 24A(6), as amended, section 34(B))

4. It is not a good use of public resources to investigate complaints about complaint procedures, if we are unable to deal with the substantive issue.

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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. In response to Mr X’s complaint the Council said its visit to the family home was made as part of a Section 47 investigation. It had agreed the visit with Y’s mother. The Council accepted its communication with Mr X had not been consistent and it apologised for this. It said Early Help had not been clear in explaining what it could and could not do. The support Mr X had asked for, including financial help, were not all services Early Help could provide. It was sorry it did not escalate a request from Mr X to speak to a manager. Mr X had since withdrawn his support for Early Help’s involvement.
8. While I understand Mr X’s frustrations, we will not start an investigation into his complaint. Our role is not to ask whether an organisation could have done things better, or whether we agree or disagree with what it did. Instead, we look at whether there was fault in how it made its decisions. If we decide there was no fault in how it did so, we cannot ask whether it should have made a particular decision or reached a different outcome. We also need to consider what impact any alleged fault had and what we could now achieve by investigating; we only have limited resources.
9. In this case, Mr X is unhappy the Council visited the family home and recorded a meeting. Under Section 47 enquiries the Council needs to speak parents and the child concerned. I know Mr X wanted the Council to interview Y at school. But how and where a council meets those involved is a matter of professional judgement. On this point it is unlikely an investigation would find enough fault for us to be able to criticise the Council.
10. Mr X clearly contacted the Council on several occasions and asked for assistance. The Council has accepted some fault in its communication and not being clear about the support Early Help could offer. We will not look at this point as it is unlikely an investigation could achieve anything more or that it would lead to a different outcome. Early Help is limited in what it can do, and our involvement would not change that.
11. Even if we did investigate it is unlikely that, on balance, we could say the Council’s actions have affected things like the relationship between Y and her mother, or the amount Mr X sees his daughter. We also have no powers to become involved in things like contact arrangements which are between parents and are often decided in court.
12. Mr X is also unhappy with the Council’s handling of his complaint. But we will not look at complaint handling in isolation if we are not going to look at the matters which led to the original complaint. That applies here.

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Final decision

13. We will not investigate Mr X’s complaint because it is unlikely our intervention would add anything to the Council’s response or achieve a different outcome.

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Investigator's decision on behalf of the Ombudsman