Summary: We cannot and will not investigate Miss X and Ms Y’s complaints about the Council’s children services actions. We cannot investigate actions and reports involved in legal proceedings and there is another body better placed to consider the accuracy of documents.

The complaint

1. The complainant, whom I shall call Miss X, says the Council’s children services team have failed to communicate with Ms Y’s support network effectively and have not gathered information sufficiently or fairly, and are significantly lacking in integrity.

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The Ombudsman’s role and powers

2. 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)
3. We have the power to start or discontinue an investigation into a complaint within our jurisdiction. We may decide not to start or continue with an investigation if we think the issues could reasonably be, or have been, raised within a court of law. (Local Government Act 1974, sections 24A(6) and 34B(8), as amended)
4. We normally expect someone to refer the matter to the Information Commissioner if they have a complaint about data protection. However, we may decide to investigate if we think there are good reasons. (Local Government Act 1974, section 24A(6), as amended)
5. We investigate complaints about ‘maladministration’ and ‘service failure’. In this statement, I have used the word 'fault' to refer to these. We must also consider whether any fault has had an adverse impact on the person making the complaint. I refer to this as ‘injustice’. We provide a free service, but must use public money carefully. We may decide not to start or continue with an investigation if we believe there is another body better placed to consider this complaint. (Local Government Act 1974, section 24A(6), as amended)

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How I considered this complaint

6. I considered the information Miss X provided which included the Council’s reply. I considered Miss X’s comments on a draft version of this decision.

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What I found

7. Miss X says she is part of Ms Y’s support network. The Council’s children services team is involved with Ms Y about the care of her child, B. There are ongoing Court proceedings to decide B’s care.
8. Miss X says the Council:
1. has failed to keep Ms Y and Miss X properly informed and involved,
2. is evasive and assumes untrustworthiness,
3. is uncontactable and is not transparent,
4. has taken unverified and non credible sources of information and used it as evidence in court reports,
5. has ignored Miss X, causing inaccurate and misleading accounts to be presented in court.
9. Miss X and Ms Y want to be able to challenge the reports and evidence. Miss X says Ms Y believes she will not have the opportunity to do this within the Court proceedings.

Analysis

10. We cannot consider any complaint about the way the Council has conducted Court proceedings. Any such criticism would be for the court, which may also issue sanctions and make awards of costs.
11. We cannot investigate the preparation, collation, and analysis of evidence, including reports written by social workers or other officers for court proceedings. This includes the use of a report written previously, in later court proceedings and evidence given by council officers in any proceedings.
12. We cannot investigate the same issues a Court is considering. Here the Court is considering B’s care. We cannot consider that nor the effect any Council action has on that Court case or the Court’s decision.
13. Of those documents which Miss X says are inaccurate which are not part of the Court proceedings or affect those proceedings, Miss X has the right to request records are ‘rectified’. This means any factual inaccuracies are corrected. If the Council refuses to do so, she can complain to the Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO). Parliament set up the ICO to consider data protection disputes which includes ‘right to rectification’ disputes. The ICO is better placed than us to consider if the Council should change its records particularly because there are complex exemptions for child protection case files.

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Final decision

14. We will not and cannot investigate this complaint. This is because we cannot investigate reports and documents used in legal proceedings, and the ICO is better placed.

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Investigator's decision on behalf of the Ombudsman