Summary: We will not investigate this complaint about the Council’s refusal to accept Ms X’s complaint under the children’s statutory complaints procedure. There is not enough evidence of fault by the Council to warrant our involvement.

The complaint

1. Ms X complained the Council refused to consider her complaint under the children’s statutory complaints procedure. Ms X said the Council applied the one-year time limit without considering its discretion.
2. Ms X said the matter caused a negative impact to her mental health.

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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. (Local Government Act 1974, section 24A(6), as amended, section 34(B))
4. We consider whether there was fault in the way an organisation made its decision. 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

5. I considered information provided by the complainant.
6. I considered the Ombudsman’s Assessment Code.

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My assessment

7. Ms X complained to the Council in July 2025. Ms X complained about the Council’s children’s services involvement with her family between 2017-2023.
8. Statutory guidance says statutory complaints should be made within one year but gives Councils a wide discretion to investigate older complaints. This is where a person could not reasonably have complained earlier, or where evidence remains available to investigate the complaint properly.
9. In its response, the Council declined to consider Ms X’s complaint under the children’s statutory complaints procedure. It acknowledged Ms X had provided reasons why she had not complained sooner but said it could not sufficiently consider the concerns due to the passage of time since its involvement with the family.
10. The Ombudsman is not an appeal body. This means we do not take a second look at a decision to decide if it was wrong. Instead, we look at the processes an organisation followed to make its decision. If we consider it followed those processes correctly, we cannot question whether the decision was right or wrong.
11. The available evidence suggests the Council considered whether it should accept Ms X’s complaint despite it being late, in line with statutory guidance.
12. There is not enough evidence of fault by the Council here to warrant our involvement and so we will not investigate.

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Final decision

13. We will not investigate Ms X’s complaint because there is not enough evidence of fault to warrant our involvement.

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Investigator's decision on behalf of the Ombudsman