Summary: We will not investigate this complaint about the Council’s involvement in Mr X’s children’s case. Investigation by the Ombudsman would not achieve a meaningful outcome.

The complaint

1. Mr X complained the Council removed his children from the family home coercively, without a court order or any reasonable basis. He said it also gave conflicting information to both parents, and breached data protection laws by sharing sensitive data with a third party.
2. Mr X said this caused significant distress to him and his children. He wanted the Council to acknowledge fault, apologise, discipline the responsible workers and admit data breaches to the police.

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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:

• 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. We normally expect someone to refer the matter to the Information Commissioner if they have a complaint about data protection. However, we may decide to investigate if we think there are good reasons. (Local Government Act 1974, section 24A(6), as amended)

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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. Mr X’s complaint relates to a home visit the Council completed in 2025, when it was involved in his children’s case due to child protection concerns. The Council says the children’s mother chose on the day in question to leave the family home with the children. Mr X says the Council spent four hours at the house coercing the children and their mother to leave.
8. A person with parental responsibility for a child has a duty to protect them from risk of harm. If a person decides to use their parental responsibility to remove their children from the other parent, the parent from whom they have been removed can take the matter to court for a determination of what is in the children’s best interests.
9. Neither the Council, nor the Ombudsman, can decide where a child should live and what contact they should have with their parents. Only the courts can do so. While Mr X has not explicitly said he seeks contact with his children from complaining to us, it appears that is what he ultimately seeks. We could not achieve that outcome.
10. We cannot make recommendations in relation to individual Council officers. We would have no power to recommend disciplinary action for specific officers as
    Mr X seeks.
11. The Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO) is the body best placed to consider complaints about how organisations handle people’s data. We will not consider Mr X’s complaint about a data breach.
12. There is not a meaningful outcome we could achieve for Mr X by investigating his complaint. It is not proportionate therefore to investigate the complaint to decide whether the Council’s actions on the day in question amounted to fault. It is open to Mr X to apply to the courts for a child arrangement order.

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Final decision

13. We will not investigate Mr X’s complaint because doing so would not achieve a meaningful outcome.

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Investigator's decision on behalf of the Ombudsman