Summary: We will not investigate this complaint about the Council’s involvement in Ms X’s child’s case. The complaint is largely about court proceedings, which the law prevents us from investigating. We could not provide a meaningful outcome by investigating other parts of the complaint, as only further court proceedings could achieve the outcomes Ms X seeks in any event.

The complaint

1. Ms X complained the Council:
1. prevented her from attending court proceedings relating to her child;
2. withheld information from court, including her child’s representations and information from a GP;
3. made mistakes with information, for example saying she had provided test strips for testing her child’s urine when they were instead for water testing;
4. accused her of lying about her child’s illnesses;
5. did not properly consider her concerns about hygiene in contact centres and was untruthful about paying for cleaning services;
6. refused to investigate her allegation social workers were visiting the public while infected with a virus; and
7. did not properly investigate her complaint and missed complaint timescales.
2. Ms X said the Council’s actions caused her child’s illnesses, affected court proceedings and led to her child being placed in the care of their father. She said she had spent £30,000 in legal costs and needed to spend £150 to £200 weekly for contact with her child. She wanted the Council to reopen the child’s case, reassess, provide explanations and pay her costs.

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The Ombudsman’s role and powers

3. The Local Government Act 1974 sets out our powers but also imposes restrictions on what we can investigate.
4. 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)
5. 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
• 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))

6. The courts have said we can decide not to investigate a complaint about any action by an organisation concerning a matter which the law says we cannot investigate. (R (on the application of M) v Commissioner for Local Administration [2006] EHWCC 2847 (Admin))

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How I considered this complaint

7. I considered information provided by the complainant and the Council.
8. I considered the Ombudsman’s Assessment Code.

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My assessment

Court proceedings

9. The law prevents us from investigating what happens in court. This includes the content of a council’s representations to court and its actions during proceedings. Complaints a) to d) are specifically about the court proceedings and we have no power to investigate them.

Outcomes Ms X seeks

10. We could not achieve the outcomes Ms X seeks from complaining. We have no power to have the child’s case reconsidered, as only the courts could make a new decision about what is in the child’s best interests or consider Ms X’s legal costs and whether the Council should pay them.

Additional reasons we would not investigate in any event

11. We already considered complaint e) as part of a previous complaint. However for the avoidance of doubt, we would not investigate this complaint in any event, even in relation to newer concerns. We could not say the child’s illnesses were caused by hygiene standards in contact centres, and so we could not say any fault had caused an injustice.
12. Ms X has not alleged anyone contracted the specific virus she claims a social worker had during visits to the public. Nor could we conclude this was the case. The virus in question is spread through skin-to-skin contact. There is insufficient evidence of any injustice relating to part f) of the complaint.
13. Part g) of the complaint relates specifically to how the Council handled Ms X’s complaint. 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. However, there is insufficient evidence of fault by the Council in any event. It decided the scope of the complaint it would investigate given the significant amount of information it received from Ms X. Given the amount of correspondence, the Council also naturally took longer to investigate and respond.

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Final decision

14. We will not investigate Ms X’s complaint because it is largely about court proceedings, which the law prevents us from investigating. We could not provide a meaningful outcome by investigating other parts of the complaint, as only further court proceedings could achieve the outcomes Ms X seeks.

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Investigator's decision on behalf of the Ombudsman