Summary: We cannot investigate Miss X’s complaint about children’s services’ actions during court proceedings. The law prohibits us from doing so. We will not investigate late complaints about events before proceedings, as there is not a good reason for the delay in Miss X bringing them to us. There is insufficient evidence of fault in the Council’s actions in sharing information following court proceedings. Other parts of the complaint are not about actions of the Council, or are matters it has not yet had the opportunity to respond to.

The complaint

1. Miss X complained about the Council’s involvement in her children’s case before, during and after family court proceedings. Her complaints included:
• a lack of support for the family for several years;
• the social worker’s conduct and making biased representations to court;
• the actions and recommendations of the children’s guardian; and
• the Council failing to offer Miss X support and continuing to share information about the family after the children’s removal.
2. Miss X said the matter had caused significant distress and fault by the Council led to her losing care of her children. She wanted it to pay compensation and return her children to her care.
3. Miss X also complained about actions of the Council’s housing service.

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The Ombudsman’s role and powers

4. The Local Government Act 1974 sets out our powers but also imposes restrictions on what we can investigate.
5. We cannot investigate a complaint about the start of court action or what happened in court. (Local Government Act 1974, Schedule 5/5A, paragraph 1/3, as amended)
6. The courts have said we can decide not to investigate a complaint about any action by an organisation concerning a matter which the law says we cannot investigate. (R (on the application of M) v Commissioner for Local Administration [2006] EHWCC 2847 (Admin))
7. 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)
8. 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), section 34(B))
9. We cannot investigate complaints about actions which are not the administrative function of a council. (Local Government Act 1974, section 26(1) as amended).
10. The law says we cannot normally investigate a complaint unless we are satisfied the organisation knows about the complaint and has had an opportunity to investigate and reply. However, we may decide to investigate if we consider it would be unreasonable to notify the organisation of the complaint and give it an opportunity to investigate and reply. (Local Government Act 1974, section 26(5), section 34(B)6)

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How I considered this complaint

11. I considered information provided by the complainant and the Council.
12. I considered the Ombudsman’s Assessment Code.

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My assessment

Events before court involvement

13. The information Miss X provided indicates court proceedings were ongoing for around two years until late 2025. She complains about events up to five years before she brought the matter to us. Complaints about events before court involvement therefore likely relate to events between 2020 and 2023.
14. Miss X complained to us in early 2026, and said the Council had failed to support the family over several years.
15. The law says people must bring complaints to us within 12 months of becoming aware of the matter, unless there are good reasons. It was open to Miss X at the time to raise a formal complaint to the Council, then us, about a lack of support between 2020 and 2023. There is not a good reason she did not do so. We will not now investigate these historical complaints.

Events while family court proceedings were ongoing

16. The law expressly prohibits us from investigating what happens as part of court proceedings. This includes the content of reports written for, or used in, court.
17. We will not investigate the peripheral actions of the social worker, who Miss X says was biased, failed to provide support and failed to make genuine efforts to support family reunification. The actions of social workers when compiling evidence for court reports, where the alleged impact of their actions is what they presented to the court, are not separable to the proceedings themselves.
18. The children’s guardian is an independent professional appointed by the court and not employed by the Council. The children’s guardian was not carrying out an administrative function of the Council, and we have no power to investigate their actions.

Events after court involvement

19. Miss X’s complaint included concerns the social worker had continued to share information about Miss X and her family’s circumstances, after her children had been removed from her care. She says this resulted in police involvement. She considers the social worker’s actions amounted to harassment, defamation, abuse of authority and discrimination.
20. The Council has an overriding responsibility to protect children. We would not find it at fault for sharing information with other organisations where it believed doing so was necessary and relevant to protect children. There is insufficient evidence of fault in the Council’s actions in sharing information with other bodies after proceedings had ended.
21. We must give councils the opportunity to consider and respond to complaints before we can consider them. Miss X’s complaint to us included concerns about more recent housing matters, and an alleged lack of post-adoption support. Her complaint to the Council did not include these matters, so we cannot consider these complaints at this time. It is open to Miss X to complain to the Council and then bring a new complaint to us if necessary.

Complaint-handling

22. It is not a good use of public resources to investigate complaints about complaint procedures, if we are unable to deal with the substantive issue. We will not investigate how the Council responded to Miss X’s complaint.

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Final decision

23. We cannot investigate Miss X’s complaint about the Council’s actions as part of court proceedings. We will not investigate her late complaints, and there is insufficient evidence of fault in the more recent events we have considered. We have no power to investigate the actions of the children’s guardian, and other matters are premature at this time.

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Investigator's decision on behalf of the Ombudsman