Summary: We will not investigate this complaint about the Council not accepting a complaint about a social worker changing a report written for a Special Educational Needs and Disability Tribunal. Another body is better placed than us to consider the complaint about the social worker’s professional actions and the Special Educational Needs and Disability Tribunal can consider the content of the social worker’s report. It would not be productive for us to investigate how the Council dealt with a complaint where we will not consider the substantive matters complained of.

The complaint

1. Mrs X said the Council wrongly declined to consider her complaint about a social worker altering the content of a report for a Special Educational Needs and Disability Tribunal.

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The Ombudsman’s role and powers

2. The Ombudsman investigates 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 may decide not to continue with an investigation if we decide:

• further investigation would not lead to a different outcome, or
• we cannot achieve the outcome someone wants, or
• there is another body better placed to consider this complaint.

(Local Government Act 1974, section 24A(6))

3. The law says we cannot normally investigate a complaint when someone can appeal to a tribunal. However, we may decide to investigate if we consider it would be unreasonable to expect the person to appeal. (Local Government Act 1974, section 26(6)(a), as amended)
4. The First-tier Tribunal (Special Educational Needs and Disability) considers appeals against council decisions regarding special educational needs. We refer to it as the SEND Tribunal in this decision statement.

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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. As Mrs X accepted in her complaint to the Council, she can challenge the content of the report written for the SEND Tribunal at the forthcoming hearing. Equally, I understand her complaint is about the social worker’s action in allegedly changing the content of the report for the SEND Tribunal without her knowledge.
8. Despite the difference of emphasis between the two points, I do not think we would be able to separate them were we to investigate. This is because the injustice flowing from the social worker’s alleged actions would be the changes to the report that are likely to be before the SEND Tribunal for it to decide.
9. Additionally, if one regards the social worker’s actions as an issue of professional practice alone, that would not be a matter for us. This is because as we are not a regulatory body for the professional practice of social workers, and we cannot decide if a matter was professional malpractice. Mrs X might wish to approach Social Work England.
10. We could not achieve any worthwhile outcome by investigating the Council’s handling of Mrs X’s complaint. This is because we could not recommend the Council investigates a matter we would not investigate ourselves if Mrs X was dissatisfied with the result and returned to us.

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Final decision

11. We will not investigate Mrs X’s complaint because:

• Another body is better placed to consider the social worker’s professional actions;
• The matters complained of are not separable from the content of the report the social worker wrote, which is for a forthcoming SEND Tribunal to consider; and
• No worthwhile outcome would be likely from investigating the Council’s complaint-handling alone.

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Investigator's decision on behalf of the Ombudsman