Summary: The Ombudsman cannot investigate Mr X’s complaint about children services actions. We cannot investigate a Police crime investigation nor the information the Council gave a Court. A Court is currently considering the issues Mr X wanted the Council to investigate and we cannot investigate the same issues a Court is considering.

The complaint

1. The complainant, whom I shall call Mr X, says the Council’s children services team failed to investigate his concerns and has not been fair.

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The Ombudsman’s role and powers

2. 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)
3. 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)
4. We cannot investigate complaints about police action in connection with crime. (Local Government Act 1974, Schedule 5, paragraph 2, as amended)
5. 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)
6. 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. (Local Government Act 1974, section 24A(6), as amended)

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How I considered this complaint

7. I considered the information Mr X provided and the Council’s replies to him which it provided. I considered Mr X’s comments on a draft version of this decision.

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What I found

Background

8. Mr X is the father to four children. He says that from 2009 onwards he reported domestic incidents to the Council and his concerns at the children’s mother’s ability to care for their children. Mr X says the Council failed to properly consider those reports.
9. In 2017, the mother left the country for an extended period. When she returned in August 2018 she took the children to live in another part of the UK from Mr X’s home. Mr X says the Council did not properly consider his reports about her ability to care for the children.
10. Mr X applied to Court to see his children. Those proceedings continue.

Analysis

11. We cannot investigate events known to Mr X for more than 12 months without good reasons. There are no exceptional reasons given why Mr X delayed in complaining to us about the lack of Council investigation into his reports before the mother left the country. In reply to a draft version of this decision, Mr X said his complaint is only about the Council’s actions after August 2018.
12. Mr X says a Council officer gave the Police inaccurate information. He says this led to an unnecessary criminal investigation and imposing unnecessary bail conditions. We cannot investigate the Police’s actions. This includes how it considered the Council’s information. We could not investigate the effect of any information given by the Council to the Police, without looking in detail at the Police investigation.
13. Mr X says a Council officer gave unfair and partial information to the Court. We cannot investigation the information given to a Court which it then relies on to make its decision. It is reasonable to expect Mr X to tell the Court of his views on the reliability of the Council’s evidence if he thinks the officer’s evidence could make a different to the Court’s decision.
14. The Court is considering the children’s care arrangements which will include the mother’s abilities. The allegations Mr X made to the Council, which he says it failed to investigate, cannot be separated from those proceedings.

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Final decision

15. The Ombudsman will not and cannot investigate this complaint. This is because we cannot investigate events known to him for more than 12 months without good reasons. Nor can we investigate a Police criminal investigation or the evidence the Council gave a Court and the issues it is considering.

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Investigator's decision on behalf of the Ombudsman