Summary: We will not investigate Mr X’s historic complaint that the Council was complicit with child abuse when he was a child in its care. The complaint lies outside our jurisdiction because it is late and there are no good grounds to exercise discretion to consider it now.

The complaint

1. Mr X complains the Council was complicit with child abuse when he was a child in its care and sided with his abusers rather than with him. Mr X says he has now been left to fight both his abusers and the Council.

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The Ombudsman’s role and powers

2. We investigate complaints about ‘maladministration’ and ‘service failure’, which we call ‘fault’. We must also consider whether any fault has had an adverse effect 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 an investigation if we decide the tests set out in our Assessment Code are not met. (Local Government Act 1974, section 24A(6), as amended)
3. The Local Government Act 1974 sets out our powers but also imposes restrictions on what we can investigate.
4. 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)

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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. Mr X complained to the Council about this matter in January 2025.
8. The Council told Mr X it would not consider his complaint as it had previously received and considered a complaint from Mr X about these matters in 2014. Its stage two 2014 response had signposted Mr X to this office if he remained dissatisfied with its response.
9. We will not investigate Mr X’s complaint. The complaint is historic and lies outside our jurisdiction because it is late. The law says a complaint should be made to us within 12 months of the person affected first becoming aware of the matter. Mr X was clearly signposted to this office in 2014 and so the complaint could have been made to us much sooner.
10. Further to this, the complaint was already historic when it was made to the Council in 2014. It noted some events complained about happened 18 years previously. This complaint has been made to us more than a decade on from that complaint and I do not see that there is any realistic prospect of us being able to carry out a full and fair investigation in to these matters now and reach a reliable view so long after the events happened. As noted in the Council’s 2014 response, regulations, statutory guidance, social work practice, residential practice and the Council’s policies and procedures have all changed and in some cases more than once since these events which would also impact our ability to carry out a meaningful investigation now as well as the limitations caused by the very significant passage of time.

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Final decision

11. We will not investigate Mr X’s complaint. It lies outside our jurisdiction because it is late and there are no good grounds to exercise discretion to consider it now for the reasons set out above.

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Investigator's decision on behalf of the Ombudsman