Summary: We will not investigate this complaint about how the Council provided Early Help to Mr X’s family without his consent. This is because there is insufficient evidence of fault by the Council.

The complaint

1. Mr X says the Council continued to provide Early Help to his children even after he withdrew his consent. He says the conduct of Children’s Services during its involvement with his family caused emotional damage and distress. Mr X wants the Council to apologise to him and improve its services.

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The Ombudsman’s role and powers

2. 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 injustice is not significant enough to justify our involvement.
• (Local Government Act 1974, section 24A(6), as amended, section 34(B))

3. If there was no fault in how the organisation made its decision, we cannot question the outcome. (Local Government Act 1974, section 34(3), as amended)

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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. The Council provided Early Help support to Mr X’s children. In August 2025 Mr X withdrew his consent for the planning and involvement of the Council’s Early Help support.
7. Early Help is voluntary. This means the Council requires consent from the family to provide its service and support. However, in this case the children’s mother wanted to continue receiving support from the Early Help team. It therefore continued to support the family until December 2025.
8. The Council was entitled to continue providing Early Help support with consent from the children’s mother. There is insufficient evidence of fault in how the Council decided to continue providing support to the children to justify an investigation.
9. Mr X further complained the social worker refused to do a home visit to his house. In its complaint response, the Council explained this was because Mr X was the non-resident parent and therefore a home visit was not required. There is insufficient evidence of fault in the Council’s decision not to visit Mr X at his home. The social worker did offer to meet and discuss matters with Mr X but he declined. Mr X had the opportunity to discuss any issues with the social worker and therefore has not suffered significant injustice by the social worker not visiting his home.

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Final decision

10. We will not investigate Mr X’s complaint because there is insufficient evidence of fault by the Council to warrant an investigation.

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Investigator's decision on behalf of the Ombudsman