Summary: We will not investigate this complaint about the Council’s actions concerning Mr X. The matters complained of are mostly not separable from decisions of a court. Investigation of the remaining matters is not warranted by the likely fault or injustice.

The complaint

1. Mr X complains the Council has failed to make reasonable adjustments and has made false allegations to prevent him being part of his children’s lives.

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The Ombudsman’s role and powers

2. The Local Government Act 1974 sets out our powers but also imposes restrictions on what we can investigate.
3. We cannot investigate a complaint if someone has started court action about the matter. (Local Government Act 1974, section 26(6)(c), as amended)
4. 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:

• there is not enough evidence of fault to justify investigating, or
• any fault has not caused injustice to the person who complained, or
• any injustice is not significant enough to justify our involvement, or
• we could not add to any previous investigation by the organisation, or
• there is another body better placed to consider this complaint.

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

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How I considered this complaint

5. I considered information provided by the complainant and the Council.
6. I considered the Ombudsman’s Assessment Code.

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My assessment

7. The complaint correspondence between Mr X and the Council shows most of the matters he complains of are subject to court orders. We cannot investigate them, regardless of whether Mr X believes there should be reasonable adjustments to take account of his needs.
8. Alleged data breaches and responses by the Council to subject access requests are matter for the Information Commissioner’s Office.
9. The Council accepted there was fault in the wording of a sentence in a document. It apologised and agreed to re-word the sentence. We would not recommend more.
10. The Council has a duty to respond to a safeguarding referral, but the action it may choose to take is a matter of professional judgement. It confirmed the action it took in response to Mr X’s safeguarding referral.

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Final decision

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

• Most of the matters complained of are not separable from matters decided by a court. We cannot investigate them;
• It would be reasonable for Mr X to approach the Information Commissioner’s Office about alleged data breaches or responses to subject access requests; and
• There is unlikely to be sufficient evidence of fault and/or injustice in the remaining matters to warrant investigation.

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Investigator's decision on behalf of the Ombudsman