Summary: We cannot investigate this complaint about the way the Council dealt with Mr X’s complaint as we are unable to investigate the substantive matters that underlie the complaint.

The complaint

1. Mrs X said a senior Council officer delayed dealing with his complaint and failed to respond to communications.

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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 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. The Courts have said that we cannot investigate a complaint about any action by a council, concerning a matter which is itself out of our jurisdiction. (R (on the application of M) v Commissioner for Local Administration [2006] EHWCC 2847 (Admin))

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How I considered this complaint

6. I considered information provided by the complainant.
7. I considered the Ombudsman’s Assessment Code.

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My assessment

8. The matter underlying the complaint involves an allegation made against Mr X and his wife about their care of their child that has since been accepted by all as not true. As a result of the allegation, their child, who had complex needs and had since died, was kept away from their care for four months. We have already decided in case 22 001 980 that we cannot investigate the care their child received because a court decided the placement. Similarly, it follows that we could not investigate the decision to remove the child from Mr X and his wife’s care because that was also subject to a court decision.
9. The complaint brought by Mr X concerns how the Council dealt with his complaint about its actions. In that complaint, he took the view there were systemic failings by the Council and that it should carry out specific actions. The complaint to the Council is not separable from the substantive matter of its actions after it received the report of the allegation against Mr X and his wife. I note the Council has offered Mr X £700, essentially for poor complaint handling. However, that does not give us the legal authority to investigate the Council’s complaint handling because of the legal ruling mentioned in paragraph 5 above. As the substantive matters are not ones we could investigate, we cannot investigate how the Council dealt with Mr X’s complaint.

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Final decision

10. We cannot investigate Mr X’s complaint about how the Council dealt with his complaint because a legal ruling prevents us from investigating complaints about actions by the Council concerning matters that themselves ones we cannot investigate.

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Investigator's decision on behalf of the Ombudsman