Summary: We will not investigate this complaint about actions the Council took as part of a child protection process. This is because there is insufficient evidence of fault on the Council’s part causing injustice to the complainant.

The complaint

1. The complainant, Mr X, complains the Council:
• harassed him and a third party for six months;
• called the third party discriminatory names;
• threatened to take the third party member’s children away if Mr X did not move out of their home; and
• refused to reply to his complaint for a month.
2. Mr X says he has experienced financial hardship because he had to move out of his home.

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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
• any injustice is not significant enough to justify our involvement.

(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. Our role is to consider complaints where the person bringing the complaint has suffered significant personal injustice as a direct result of the actions or inactions of the Council. This means we will normally only investigate a complaint where the complainant has suffered serious loss, harm, or distress as a direct result of faults or failures.
7. The key matter in this complaint is that the Council expressed the view Mr X’s presence in the third party’s home presented a risk to the resident children. Mr X presents this as amounting to harassment and that it placed pressure on the third party to make him move out.
8. The Council has a legal duty to act where it has concerns about the safety of children. That is the case here. In doing so, the Council needed to discuss the situation with Mr X and the third party. There is no evidence that the way it did so amounted to harassment. It is unlikely an investigation by us would find the Council at fault on this point.
9. We cannot consider how the Council communicated with the third party as part of Mr X’s complaint. It was the third party’s decision to ask Mr X to leave the property. This means there is no direct link between the Council’s actions and any injustice Mr X experienced as a result of moving out.
10. Mr X also complained about the Council’s handling of his complaint. The Council apologised to Mr X for not responding to his complaint for over a month. It is unlikely an investigation by us would achieve anything more on this point and it is not a good use of public resources to look at the Council’s complaint handling if we are unable to deal with the substantive issue.

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Final decision

11. We will not investigate Mr X’s complaint because there is insufficient evidence of fault on the Council’s part causing injustice.

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Investigator's decision on behalf of the Ombudsman