Middlesbrough Borough Council (26 009 054)
Category : Children's care services > Looked after children
Decision : Closed after initial enquiries
Decision date : 08 Jul 2026
The Ombudsman's final decision:
Summary: We will not investigate Mr X’s complaint about how the Council safeguarded him when he was a Looked After Child. The complaint is late.
The complaint
- Mr X complains about the Council’s actions when he was a Looked After Child in the early 1980s.
- Mr X says this caused distress.
- Mr X wants the Council to apologise, fund therapeutic support and compensate him.
The Ombudsman’s role and powers
- The Local Government Act 1974 sets out our powers but also imposes restrictions on what we can investigate.
- 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)
How I considered this complaint
- I considered information provided by Mr X.
- I considered the Ombudsman’s Assessment Code.
My assessment
- I have read the information Mr X supplied to us regarding his childhood and understand that this will have been a challenging and difficult experience for him to complain to us about.
- In 2023, the Council told Mr X it would not consider his complaint as it felt it could not carry out an effective investigation due to the passage of time. The Council signposted Mr X to us if he was dissatisfied with its position.
- The more time passes between the events and a complaint, the more unlikely it is we can investigate them effectively, gather reliable evidence and reach a sound decision. In older cases, we also may not be able to achieve a meaningful remedy because too many circumstances have changed. We are often unable to show why events occurred or understand who was responsible.
- I have considered whether there are good reasons for us to exercise discretion to consider Mr X's complaint. The law, explained in paragraph five, says we should not investigate late complaints. Mr X was aware of the problem in 2023 and was advised to complain to us at the time by the Council. He did not do so.
- For this reason, we will not investigate Mr X’s complaint because it is late, and I am not persuaded there is a basis to disapply the law to consider it now.
Final decision
- We will not investigate Mr X’s complaint because it is late.
Investigator's decision on behalf of the Ombudsman