Summary: We will not investigate Mr X’s complaint about the Council’s investigation of his statutory complaint. The Council have agreed to provide a remedy for the delay identified. There is not enough evidence of fault in the Council’s investigation to warrant our involvement, and we could not add to the Council’s investigation.

The complaint

1. Mr X complains the Council failed to follow the statutory three-stage complaints procedure, with unreasonable delays before stage 3 and poor handling of his concerns. He complains bias affected the process and that his complaints about the social worker and manager were not fully addressed. He also states the Council has refused to correct inaccurate information, causing reputational damage.

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The Ombudsman’s role and powers

2. The Local Government Act 1974 sets out our powers but also imposes limits on what we can investigate.
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. (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 Mr X and the Council.
5. I considered the Ombudsman’s Assessment Code.

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My assessment

6. Mr X complains the Council did not properly investigate concerns about children’s services’ involvement with his family. He says it failed to adequately consider concerns about his child’s other parent and communicated poorly about contact restrictions. He believes this affected his ability to maintain contact with his child and had a negative impact on the child’s well-being. He also complains the social worker and their manager failed to properly discharge their duties towards his child.
7. The Council investigated Mr X’s complaint through the statutory children’s complaints process. An Independent Investigating Officer found fault in the Council’s communication about contact restrictions and its failure to obtain additional medical information from the other parent’s GP. The Council accepted recommendations to apologise to Mr X and provide learning to relevant officers.
8. Mr X escalated his complaint to a stage 3 review panel, which found the stage 2 investigation had been conducted correctly and supported its findings and recommendations. The investigation considered relevant evidence, including information from Mr X and Council staff, and both the Independent Person and the stage 3 panel agreed with the findings. There is insufficient fault in the way the Council considered the complaint.
9. Mr X complains the Council failed to follow the statutory three-stage complaints procedure, because there was an unreasonable delay before the stage 3 panel. The Council have accepted that there was a delay that fell outside the statutory timescale guidelines and have offered to pay Mr X a symbolic payment to recognise this within 4 weeks of this decision.
10. Mr X complains that his concerns about the social worker and their manager were not fully addressed. The Council have addressed this part of Mr X’s complaint in their investigation. We could not add anything further to the Council’s investigation, and so won’t investigate this part of the complaint.
11. Mr X complains the Council has refused to correct inaccurate information, causing reputational damage. After the stage 3 review, the Council accepted recommendations made in the report. As part of the report’s recommendations there are ways for Mr X to add further relevant information to the case where he feels there is inaccurate information. We are unlikely to find fault in how the Council has addressed Mr X’s concerns about having inaccurate information on file for this case and could not add anything further to the Council’s investigation.
12. We will also not investigate how the Council dealt with Mr X’s complaint as it is not a good use of public resources to investigate complaints about complaint handling when we are not looking at the substantive issue.

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Final decision

13. We will not investigate Mr X’s complaint. The Council have agreed to provide a remedy for the delay identified. There is not enough evidence of fault in the Council’s investigation to warrant our involvement, and we could not add to the Council’s investigation.

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Investigator's decision on behalf of the Ombudsman