Summary: We will not investigate this complaint about the Council’s handling of Ms X’s concerns about the care of her child. An investigation by us is unlikely to achieve significantly more than the Council has already done or lead to a different outcome.

The complaint

1. The complainant, Ms X, complains the Council included false information in a social work report. She also complains the Council did not act on safeguarding concerns about her child’s father. Ms X says this made her sound like a neglectful parent and put her child at risk from their father.

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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 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 continue an investigation if we decide there is no worthwhile outcome achievable by our investigation. (Local Government Act 1974, section 24A(6), as amended, section 34(B))

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How I considered this complaint

3. I considered information provided by the complainant.
4. I considered the Ombudsman’s Assessment Code.

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My assessment

5. The law sets out a three-stage procedure for councils to follow when looking at complaints about some children’s social care services. The Council considered Ms X’s complaints at all three stages of this process. It finished in September 2025.
6. Ms X says a statement the Council made about her child’s dental health, included in a report, was inaccurate and unverified. She says the Council has not explained how it decided the statement was true.
7. The case documents show that how the Council assessed her child’s dental health was considered at all three stages of the statutory complaints procedure. Ms X disagrees with the Council’s conclusion. This is not, however, a matter on which the Ombudsman will express a view. We will not normally intervene to seek changes to a council’s records. The most we would expect to see in that the council add a record of the complainant’s dissenting view to its file. Ms X’s disagreement with the statement is already recorded on her child’s file and it is unlikely an investigation by us would achieve significantly more on this point. If Ms X believes the Council’s files contain false information, she may pursue her legal right to rectification. There is no role for us.
8. Ms X complains the Council failed to act on information she gave it regarding safeguarding risks about her child’s father. The case documents show the Council’s assessment of risk was considered at every stage of statutory complaints process. The Stage 3 independent Review Panel recommended the Council undertake a further review of whether it responded appropriately to all safeguarding concerns. The Council completed this review and concluded it had fully explored the risks and managed them properly. There is no indication of fault in that way it did so. That being the case, the Ombudsman cannot criticise the decision it made or intervene to substitute an alternative view. It is therefore unlikely an investigation by us would lead to a different outcome.
9. The statutory children’s complaints procedure was set up to provide children, young people and those involved in their welfare access to an independent, thorough and prompt response to their concerns. Because of this, if a council has investigated something under the statutory children’s complaint process the Ombudsman would not normally re-investigate it. There are no reasons to do so here.

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Final decision

10. We will not investigate Ms X’s complaint because we are unlikely to achieve a significantly different outcome to the Council’s response within its Children Act statutory complaints’ procedure.

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Investigator's decision on behalf of the Ombudsman