Summary: We will not investigate Miss X’s complaint about the Council’s children services teams handling of safeguarding allegations between 2017 and 2019. There are not enough reasons to disapply the late complaint rule. We cannot investigate recent safeguarding referrals as the Court could have made orders about this.

The complaint

1. Miss X says the Council mishandled safeguarding referrals and has refused to investigate her complaint about this.

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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 cannot investigate late complaints unless we decide there are good reasons. Late complaints are when someone takes more than 12 months to complain to us about something a council did. (Local Government Act 1974, sections 26B and 34D, as amended)
5. We investigate complaints about ‘maladministration’ and ‘service failure’, which we call ‘fault’. We must also consider whether any fault has adversely effected 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)

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How I considered this complaint

6. I considered information provided by Miss X and the Council’s reply to her.
7. I considered the Ombudsman’s Assessment Code.

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My assessment

8. In July 2025 Miss X complained to the Council. She complained about events in 2017 to 2019. She also had made a referral in May 2025 about recent events. She felt the Council had dismissed her referrals without proper consideration.
9. The Council explained in its reply the older issues were now too old to investigate. It said it was liaising with the police over more recent events.

Analysis

10. We cannot investigate events known to a complainant for more than 12 months without good reasons. Here the older events are more than seven years old. It will be more difficult to find out the material facts with reasonable confidence. I am not confident there is a realistic prospect of reaching a sound, fair, and meaningful decision. And I am not satisfied Miss X could not reasonably be expected to have complained sooner.
11. Miss X wants assurance her children will be safeguarded now and in the future. The Courts are considering Miss X’s children’s care. In those proceedings, the Court can order safeguarding investigations. We cannot investigate issues which the Court could order. It is reasonable to expect Miss X to raise this issue within those proceedings.
12. 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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Final decision

13. We will not investigate Miss X’s complaint because there are no good reasons the late complaint rule should not apply. We cannot investigate matters which a Court is, has or could have considered.

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Investigator's decision on behalf of the Ombudsman