Summary: We will not investigate Miss X’s complaint about the Council’s involvement with her children. There is not enough evidence of fault in the Council’s recent handling of her children’s case to justify our involvement. Other parts of Miss X’s complaints are late and could have been brought to us sooner.

The complaint

1. Miss X complains about the Council’s handling of her children since they were removed from her care and placed with her mother. Miss X alleges previous Social Workers and other Officers assigned to her children’s case acted improperly and were biased against her. She also complains the Council has not properly acted on her recent safeguarding concerns for her children while in their grandmother’s care. She wants a full independent investigation into the Council’s handling.

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The Ombudsman’s role and powers

2. 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 has done. (Local Government Act 1974, sections 26B and 34D, as amended)
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
• we could not add to any previous investigation by the organisation, or
• further investigation would not lead to a different outcome, or
• there is no worthwhile outcome achievable by our investigation. (Local Government Act 1974, section 24A(6), as amended, section 34(B))

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How I considered this complaint

4. I considered information provided by the complainant and the Council.
5. I considered the Ombudsman’s Assessment Code.

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My assessment

6. Miss X has complained about the practice of individual Social Workers that we previously allocated to her children’s case. These concerns are about events that occurred more than 12 months before Miss X’s complaints to us in late December 2025. The Council has previously considered these concerns under all three stages of the statutory complaint procedure for children social care. It did not uphold any of the ten complaints Miss X raised.
7. We can exercise discretion to consider late complaints if there is a good reason to do so. Any issues Miss X continues to have about the Council’s handling of her children’s case that occurred more than 12 months ago are too late to bring to us now. I am not persuaded that Miss X could not have brought these concerns to us sooner, so I will not exercise discretion to investigate these late complaints now.
8. The Council has considered Miss X’s more recent complaints about her mother’s care of her children and the Council’s supervision of her contact sessions under both stages of its corporate complaint process. The Council has confirmed the action it has taken in response to Miss X’s recent safeguarding concerns. It has also explained why it considers it necessary to continue supervising Miss X’s contact sessions with her younger children. The Council appears to have taken appropriate action to consider Miss X’s safeguarding concerns in line with its statutory duty. There is not enough evidence of fault in the Council’s handling or complaint responses to justify us investigating further.

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Final decision

9. We will not investigate Miss X’s complaint because there is not enough evidence of fault to justify our involvement and some of her complaints are late and could have been brought to us sooner.

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Investigator's decision on behalf of the Ombudsman