Summary: We cannot investigate Mr X’s complaints about reports and assessments used in Court proceedings. We will not investigate assessments in 2016 and 2017 as there are no good reasons why the late complaint rule should not apply. And the Information Commissioner’s Office is better placed to consider Mr X’s data protection complaint.

The complaint

1. The complainant, whom I shall call Mr X, complains about children services actions.

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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 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)
5. 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)
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. 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

7. I considered the information Mr X provided with his complaint and the Council’s responses. I considered Mr X’s comments on draft versions of this decision.

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What I found

8. Mr X’s complaint concerns the Council’s children services team’s actions between 2016 and 2019. He complained to the Council in April 2019. It considered his complaint within its children services three staged complaints procedure. The final stage finished in December 2020 and Mr X received its decision in January 2021.
9. Mr X made 31 separate complaints to the Council. They fall into three areas.
1. Complaints 14 to 31 are all about, or connected to, the preparation and content of a Children Act section seven report, or other information the Council gave the Court, or the logistics of evidence within Court proceedings.
1. A Court orders a section seven report to assess and consider the welfare of children. We have no power to investigate its preparation, content nor presentation.
2. We have no power to investigate any other evidence the Council gave the Court, which the Court relied upon to reach its decision.
2. Mr X’s complaint number eleven is about the accuracy of documents the Council holds. The Council’s complaints’ procedure highlighted Mr X’s Data Protection Act, ‘right to rectification’. This is a procedure Mr X is entitled to request. If the Council refuses, or does not complete it in a way Mr X wants, then he can approach the Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO). Parliament set up the ICO to decide data protection disputes and it is the more appropriate body to consider this part of his complaint.

Mr X says this is also about an individual officer’s professional behaviour. Our role is to investigate the actions of the Council as a corporate body and not to hold a single officer accountable. It is reasonable for Mr X to report his concerns about the integrity or professionalism of an officer to their professional governing body, Social Work England. Mr X has indicated that he has done so.

3. Complaints 1-10, 12 and 13 are about two children services assessments carried out on his family in 2016 and 2017 called Child and Family Assessments. We will not investigate events known to Mr X for more than 12 months unless there are good reasons to do so. Here there are not because:
1. He did not complain about these until April 2019. It is reasonable to expect him to have complained before then, particularly in 2017 before the court proceedings started.
2. The significant injustice of these reports could be that they fed into the section seven report. We cannot look at that report.
3. And we cannot investigate any assessment which then feeds into a court report for the reasons set out in paragraph three above.
4. It is reasonable to expect Mr X to have told the Court about the flaws in the Council’s assessments if he believes they affected the information it gave the Court.
5. Mr X has a right to request any factual inaccuracies are amended via the Data Protection Acts ‘right to rectification’ procedure and the ICO thereafter.
6. There is no significant injustice caused by these assessments alone.

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Final decision

10. We will not and cannot investigate this complaint. This is because we cannot investigate legal proceedings, there are no good reasons why the late complaint rule should not apply and the ICO is better placed.

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Investigator's decision on behalf of the Ombudsman