Summary: We will not investigate Mr X’s complaint about the Council refusing to investigate his children services’ complaint as we are unlikely to find fault in its decision not to do so. And we will not investigate the complaint itself as there are not sufficient reasons to disapply the 12 month legal restriction on our powers.

The complaint

1. Mr X complains about the Council’s children services teams’ actions while he was a looked after child and that it has refused to investigate his complaint about this within its Children Act statutory complaints’ procedure.

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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 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/care provider has done. (Local Government Act 1974, sections 26B and 34D, as amended)
4. We investigate complaints of injustice caused by ‘maladministration’ and ‘service failure’. I have used the word fault to refer to these. We consider whether there was fault in the way an organisation made its decision. If there was no fault in how the organisation made its decision, we cannot question the outcome. (Local Government Act 1974, section 34(3), as amended)

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How I considered this complaint

5. I considered information provided by Mr X which included the Council’s reply to him.
6. I considered the Ombudsman’s Assessment Code.

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My assessment

7. Mr X is a former looked after child. He is now 30 years old. In 2020 he asked the Council to provide him with its files on him, as a subject access request. It did so. In February 2023 he formally complained about the care he had received as a looked after child. He then withdrew his complaint. In 2025 he complained to the Council again and in June 2025 the Council refused to investigate his complaint. It said it would not do so because the events were more than 12 months old.
8. Mr X complained to us in July 2025. The Council agreed in November 2025 to review its decision not to investigate his complaint. It did so and told Mr X in January 2026 that it would not investigate his complaint within its Children Act statutory complaints’ procedure. It said that due to limitations caused by the passage of time, it had limited records available and could not fully investigate his complaint.
9. Mr X is unhappy with this decision and complained again to us in January 2026.

Analysis

10. The Ombudsman is not an appeal body. This means we do not take a second look at a decision to decide if it was wrong. Instead, we look at the processes a council followed to make its decision. If we consider it followed those processes correctly, we cannot question whether the decision was right or wrong, regardless of whether Mr X disagrees with the Council’s decision.
11. I have considered the steps the Council took to decide whether to investigate his complaint. It is unlikely we would find fault in the Council’s decision not to investigate Mr X’s complaint within the Children Act statutory complaints procedure.
12. We cannot investigate events known to Mr X for more than 12 months before he complained to us unless we have reasons to disapply that legal rule. Here we have not because:
1. I am not convinced that we are confident there is a realistic prospect of reaching a sound, fair, and meaningful decision. The events go back 20 years. It is unlikely the officers involved will have sufficiently clear memory to able to provide robust evidence. And the Council has already explained the limited documentary evidence it holds.
2. I am not satisfied that Mr X could not reasonably be expected to have complained sooner. This is particularly so because of his subject access request for documents in 2020 and his withdrawn complaint in 2023.

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Final decision

13. We will not investigate Mr X’s complaint because we are unlikely to find faut in the Council’s decision not to investigate his complaint within the Children Act complaints’ procedure. And there are no strong enough reasons to disapply the 12 month rule.

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Investigator's decision on behalf of the Ombudsman